Hi! Introduce yourselves here. :: My name is...

[cam722]

My name is Carol, and I'm addicted to turtles. Wait, that's for another time and place...

I'm 48, almost 49 (722 is my birthdate, cam are my initials), mother of 4, 1 girl (flutterby) and 3 sons. (Donnie-27, Dan-25, and Darryl-23). My youngest is a Marine currently living in Maine. I have 3 grandchildren, 2 boys and a girl (flutter's children) and my Marine and his wife are expecting a baby in January, a cat (Fred aka Jabroni) and 2 turtles JT(Jabroni turtle) and Squirt.

I babysat last year for my son's friend's turtles and that totally got me hooked. I watched them for 2 weeks while he was on vacation in South Dakota and totally fell in love. One committed suicide while he was here (wasn't my fault) and I got so upset. Heck I wanted to keep them all but he wouldn't let me, so he kept nagging me until I finally let him go shopping for my setup. Yes, he went and picked up everything.. now if he'd only have let me get some info, I could have saved myself a ton of money LOL. Oh well.. so here we are!!.. Just got the new setups (both flutter and I) and we'll have pics up later today.

[bradhart]

It's early in the morning here, so forgive me if I misread your post, but a turtle committed suicide?

[cam722]

Well it had to be that because I couldn't have been responsible could I?? *Smile* Actually he wedged himself in some rocks (that were in his tank for a basking platform) sometime during the night and we found him dead in the a.m. I was all upset and panicking, I felt so darn guilty .. I mean last time I babysat a pet for a friend, my cat ate it.. lol it was a parakeet.

[bradhart]

I'm pretty sure the coroner would rule the death accidental...and as per the parakeet... well, that's what happens when you make preditor and prey live in the same house

[cam722]

lol ok, ok, accidental death by drowning..

Well with the cat/parakeet incident .. to make it worse the cat had just had kittens and we tried to keep them apart but since kids will be kids, they left the door open to the room the bird was in and whooops. Needless to say the friend's little girl ended up with another bird ..

[marisa]

Welcome. I've read it is possible for a turtle/animal to commit suicide, but don't know if this is so in this case.

[cam722]

well he didn't commit suicide, it was just an attempt at .. well whatever.. He was seriously stressing about being moved. Then I had to deal with the other turtle being depressed because he was now in a new environment and alone. Just another lesson learned the hard way. Talk about baptism by fire.. and yet I still got turtles.

[marisa]

Whatever happened, I'm sorry you lost him.

[STRAYKINGFISHER]

I found a site some time ago saying that some turtles will commit suicide, if I find it I will post it, it is kinda funny, at least in my opinion, not about the suicide but about the reasons they give for thinking it was suicide.

UPDATE:

Found it, here is a quote from it.:

DESERT TORTOISES - OTHER EXOTIC TORTOISES

Dead at the bottom of a swimming pool - suicide
Upside down - suicide
Tangled in weeds - accident
Just dead in the sun - suicide

BOX TURTLES

Upside down in the sun - suicide
Cooked in sun in an upright position - suicide
Drowned - accident
Drowned and cannibalized - suicide
Tangled in weeds - accident

WATER TURTLES

Out of water all night - suicide (wanting to be eaten by a predator)
Cooked in sun - suicide
Drowned - suicide (was probably sick)
Cannibalized in water - suicide (was weak and sick)

From: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepage ... dex-17.htm

[flutterby]

Whoever created that page had a little too much time on their hands or was under the influence of drugs.

[cam722]

Ok, reading that site, it's hard not to laugh...

and I quote:

"Stress has a negative effect on turtles and tortoises. You might first think that constant handling is stressful and indeed it is and should be avoided. A turtle doesn't urinate the moment it is lifted up because it is happy! If a giant being lifted YOU into the air, probably the same thing would happen."

Which is exactly why my turtles freaked out when we moved them to a lower position, now what had seemed harmless and "eye level" was tall and threatening.

[bradhart]

the only animal I've ever heard of committing suicide are swans. They mate for life, and it's been recorded that when one dies, the other partner will fly very high and let itself fall to the ground... not sure how often it happens, but I guess it does

[TexasJagsFan]

the only animal I've ever heard of committing suicide are swans. They mate for life, and it's been recorded that when one dies, the other partner will fly very high and let itself fall to the ground... not sure how often it happens, but I guess it does

Hmm that would be interesting to watch.

[STRAYKINGFISHER]

the only animal I've ever heard of committing suicide are swans. They mate for life, and it's been recorded that when one dies, the other partner will fly very high and let itself fall to the ground... not sure how often it happens, but I guess it does

With swans, I guess it would be understandable that they commit suicide, since they mate for life and lose thier mate, their life is pretty much over, their whole purpose is to fertilize his partner's eggs, and since his partner is no longer there, his whole purpose is gone, it is not like he can go find a job somewhere to keep his mind off his partner.

[lydia_lady_fla]

hmmmmmmmmmmm...... remind me who Not to ask to babysit....lol j/k welcome to u and ur daughter sounds like u 2 r having fun.I have been reading u guys post just been busy getting home from vacation and actually need to be cleaning but.....guess who not to hire as ur maid right? lol