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Tempestborn   Milan   Tempestborn

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#2264513 Tempestborn View Profile	Lovely penelope i’m learning what every single weed around my house is, whether it’s toxic, looking up nutritional breakdowns on the things i can find them for (i’m also amassing a "nutritional content of everything in the whole flippin’ world" list, but it has a ways to go. when i finish it, i’ll give it to doug to make available. anyway, as you know, penelope is perfect. she’s a very relaxed little girl. she fell asleep in her cooler side today: i made her a huge range out of the bottom of half of the big cage, and the ungrateful little brat somehow got out (of a cage in a cage). i tore my house apart looking for her, turned all the furniture over, turned the cage over, tore the siding off the house. i have a sweet friend named todd and i’m calling him hysterical because i can’t find my turtle (he was with me the day i bought her, loaned me 36.00 to do so), and he’s on the other line--at work; he works nights--telling me she’ll be okay and she’ll turn up and just hold on and he’ll check in with me in the morning. and he texted and i hadn’t found her, so he baby-talked me some more and told me he’d be over as soon as he got off work. which he was, 12-hour shift and he didn’t even stop by his house. by that time the last room left was my bedroom--the farthest from the cage in the living room. todd figured i must have missed her in the living room, so he’s moving things very carefully, and i took my tearful little self into my room to start moving things there. i have a three-drawer sterlite chest full of, basically, (very important) junk. i moved it first. and there she was, sound asleep with her nose tucked into a corner. i dropped to my knees right there. i was so afraid i’d lost her, terrified that maybe sylvester had gotten hold of her (sylvester once dragged a grackle--a BIG black bird--alive through the dog door). i am so madly in love with this silly little animal! so. traded her huge environment for a different bin, deeper and with more floor space. put her dirt/bed-a-beast mixture in, and her hide and her light and her pond. she seems more content and hasn’t flipped herself over once. i did put contact paper halfway up the sides of the bin so she can’t see through--the boards i put all around her big cage were four inches high; she’s one inch tall; i don’t know how she figured there was anyplace to go, and how she got there remains a mystery. i have her set up so that her light is more toward one end, and that end is drier, and i’ve put more moisture in the rear half and her hide is there, too, so she can cool off if she wants and still dry out. her pond is in the middle. she likes the substrate, burrows right in to go to sleep at night. she knows who her mommy is, i swear. and trusts me implicitly: look at those tiny back legs! she’d just come in from grazing and running around. clearly it took a lot out of her. i’ve noticed that a relaxed iguana flops its front legs back; a relaxed tortoise flops its back legs back. i bought her on april 1st, so i’ve had her for four weeks, which makes her about ten weeks old. i haven’t found anything that says how old she has to be before she isn’t so ridiculously fragile, so i’m feeling my way along with my fingers crossed. i read on one of the sites, it said, "if the hatchling survives (and most don’t)..." well, geez, i wish i’d read that before this silly beast tromped into my heart! milan, my heart goes out to you. i don’t know how i’d cope if i lost her. anyway, i’ll cut and paste this to the tortoise forum, but i thought i’d like people to actually see it. jesse
04/27/12  09:24pm
#2264514 Milan View Profile	Message To: Tempestborn   In reference to Message Id: 2264513  Lovely penelope oh gosh i know how you feel, these little guys sure do grab hold of your heart strings. im still a mess from Zinders passing. i went to a store today that happened to have a ton of tortoise knick knacks and i almost burst out crying in the aisle! she is so sweet, i am thinking the breeder lied to me about zinders age, Penelope looks bigger then he did and he was supposed to be almost 8 months old when he passed! and i apprently lost morla (the box turtle) a few weeks ago for a day or 2 without even knowing it, she somehow got out of her table (which is 3 feet off the ground) and i was laying in bed watching a scary movie (go figure) when i heard a scratching sound in the corner nearest me...of coarse being a wierdo i was afraid to look (it was paranomal activity so i was freaked to begin with) and when i finally turned my head, i see her scratching in the corner! i didnt even know she had gotten out because up until a week ago she stayed buried in her ’strate most of the time doing a semi hibernation...im amzed she stayed in the bedroom and didnt fling her silly butt down the hardwood stairs lol. oh and speking of dissapearing pets did i mention i have a magic betta lol. this guy is in a Fluval Chi, which is basically a square glass box with a water fall on top and all day yesterday i would have sworn he jumped out and the dogs ate him...and then this morning he was magically back in the tank! so wierd! but anyway Penelope looks great, and i must say seeing her makes me really feel like its a bad idea for me to go to this reptile expo on sunday lol.
04/27/12  09:40pm
#2264575 Tempestborn View Profile	Message To: Milan   In reference to Message Id: 2264514  Lovely penelope oh, that couldn’t be right! he’d be a lot bigger than he was at eight months, i’m sure. i looked up a couple places; one of them showed one being held and was an ad for 8-mo-old sulcatas, but the one in the pic was penelope’s size. i looked here Link and that seems more believable to me. as always, conflicting information! you can’t even get a consistent estimate of grown size or life expectancy. why are people raising these and selling them (and yes, buying them) without knowing anything about them? i plan to raise penelope on instinct and research. my instincts are generally good. i can usually tell by "feel" if a piece of info is legitimate. jesse
04/28/12  10:22am

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