If it wasn’t too long, I would’ve entitled this blog, “What I Learned From Buying Two Turtles Off the Street from a Street Vendor.“ If you’ve been following the pet blog today, you’ve probably already seen my first two blogs on buying a turtle from a street vendor. It has definitely been a learning experience and while my first two articles covered why on earth I would buy a turtle, and how it is we came to own two turtles, this blog is all about the lessons I learned from buying our impulse pets.
Unlike the examples in Aimee’s blog where the parents had pet ownership thrust upon them by sheer luck, I did actually choose to impulsively buy turtles. It hasn’t been all bad but it is safe to say that I strongly recommend researching thoroughly your pet buying decisions!
As soon as we got home, we got online and looked up our turtles. We had red-eared sliders. And then we found this gem: It is apparently illegal to sell turtles that are less than 4” in diameter because small children can stick them in their mouths and get salmonella poisoning. Our turtles were about 1 inch in diameter.
I did know that you had to be careful handling turtles and that they can carry salmonella. That wasn’t a shock. And really, once I thought about it, the idea that a Chinese lady on the street selling turtles in the inner city might. . .just might be illegal wasn’t a shock either. I just hadn’t considered it. (I’m telling you, it was the pressure of all those pairs of blue eyes!)
So now, not only did we have to figure out what type of place the turtles might like to live in, but also we had to figure out where we could put them so that none of these small children I have, could get into them without our direct supervision–a point I hadn’t really considered. But we solved that problem easily.
I figured we’d have to buy a tank when they got bigger. . .but no, the information we were reading described the ideal habitat with some type of log for climbing onto, plenty of water for swimming, and gravel for digging. Our little terrarium really was simply sufficient for carrying them home. So off we went to the pet store. . .
. . .where I bought about $100 worth of stuff to take care of the turtles. They got gravel, a floating log, a filter and a new tank with a top. Suddenly, I’m not thinking that I’m such a smart parent for impulsively buying two turtles. My husband wasn’t so impressed either.
What brought me to be invited by Aimee to share my story was that the turtles have recently died. The temperature dropped drastically and I think they froze to death. So we are currently preparing our tank for some new additions of some type.
But the story isn’t all bad. My son now knows more about turtles than the average six year old boy. This experience has definitely spawned in him what I think will be a life long love of pet keeping. We never did those lapbooks, but we did learn a lot about the turtle life cycle, what makes an amphibian an amphibian, and how much it costs to take care of pets. My son really did a very good job taking care of his pets. . .spending part of his own allowance on pet care, feeding them and making sure the tank was kept clean. We were out of town when the temperature dropped and it was so unpredictable of this time of year, that it really was not his fault.
On a side note, we were at the pet store yesterday looking for possible replacements (I’m doing my research this time). Meghan thinks that the little tiny pink snake would be just perfect!
Blogs I’ll have to read BEFORE I get the pink snake:
Feeding Pre-Killed Prey to Your Snake
Snakes: Live Prey vs. Pre-Killed Prey