Tortoise story

I have always wanted a tortoise.  Lord knows why, I have just had this vision of having one or 2 roaming my garden in peace.  Every time I have the unfortunate job of going to the pet shop to replenish gold fish (often) I check to see whether they have any.  They never do.

So, last week I happened to notice a couple of little ones in the rabbit hutch at school.  To cut a long story short, I committed to taking one and ended up with two in return for getting a permit for the school to have one on the premises. 

Of course hubby promised to “build” the tortoise hutch.  I mean, how difficult can it be?

Well.  After taking a 2 hour roadtrip with Daniel to buy the stuff he needed on Sunday avie he came home with nothing.  Yes.  Nothing to build a home for my new children.  BUT, he chatted to the guy at the DYI shop and blahblahblah wood blahblahblah make holes in the wood and much rolling of eyes from me.  Today was Wednesday and clearly no home was built for the poor little creatures.

So, I collected them from the school and brought them home and they are in an “enclosed” corner.  After I Googled “taking care of tortoises”.  Let me tell you, by all accounts they are not easy creatures to please.

God, I hope they are alive tomorrow morning.  If I killed them I would never forgive myself, besides the fact that I would never in a million years live it down.  Or be forgiven by my children.  I would be Bad Mother personified.  Vilified by my friends.  The teacher would start ignoring my child.  The parents would turn their backs on me in the parking lot.

Ok, I’m over it now.  And the bloody torch is broken so I can’t even go out and check on them.

Has anyone ever had a tortoise?  Are they really that hard to take care of?

And just before anyone asks, they were born in captivity, they were not taken from the wild!!

8 thoughts on “Tortoise story”

  1. They do require quite a bit of care – I have a friend who runs a sanctuary for abandoned and abused tortoises in KZN. If you’re interested in more info, please spaces me your e-mail address and I’ll get her to send info to you.

  2. I’ll be interested to know what is involved. I always thought it was give them lettuce leaves and grass and make sure no one runs over them with a car – clearly not!

  3. We had tortoises growing up – my parents gave them an enclosed area to roam around in. We were fortunate as my gran’s tortoises had laid eggs and we got the little ones – very cute! They are lovely pets – I’d love to have now but we have two Daschunds and they would probably think it is a big stone with legs and bark at it all day long.

  4. We had one that just roamed our garden. Our biggest worry was that neighbourhood cats would flip him. Other than that he lived for a loooong time. When my dad sold my childhood home – Skillie stayed behind because he was just so darn comfy and the new owners didn’t mind.

  5. Good luck with the tortoises,have never had one,but a friend had one in her garden for years,.just roaming around

  6. lol 🙂 never had a tortoise sorry … good luck with them though … i am sure you’ll make them a good home 🙂

  7. We also wanted a tortoise, but we have a labrador. Not a great combo in our garden! Also heard you need a permit (?). Wouldn’t know what’s involved in caring for one!

    We even considered a chinchilla last year – now THAT’S a lot of work. Aircon, no loud noise – hmmm. In my house? You gotta be kidding!

    Hope the tort’s are still okay – it’s pretty hard to buy a replacement! Not like a hamster 😉

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