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Turtles anyone?

The TVClubHouse: General Discussions ARCHIVES: 2004 Nov. - 2005 Jan.: Hairball Haven (ARCHIVES): Turtles anyone? users admin

Author Message
Julieboo
Member

02-05-2002

Sunday, September 12, 2004 - 5:09 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
We can barely keep our last goldfish alive, so I am afraid to get a turtle. However my little sweetie really loves his plastic turtles and wants a real one. Anyone know anything about turtles or which type of turtle is easy to keep alive?

Jmm
Member

08-16-2002

Sunday, September 12, 2004 - 5:41 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Julie, Before you decide to go out and get a turtle for your son, please check out this site: http://www.maturtlerescue.org/. It has a lot of good information on turtles and the amount of care they take.

One paragraph that caught my eye especially was:
If you are considering the purchase or the adoption of a turtle or tortoise for your child, MTR recommends looking for a different type of animal for a pet. Turtles and tortoises do not make good pets for children as they are easily stressed with too much handling and can be asymptomatic carriers of Salmonellosis. For in-depth information on Salmonellosis and other zoonotic (diseases that we can get from our pets) diseases read; Disease and Transmission.

Wargod
Moderator

07-16-2001

Sunday, September 12, 2004 - 9:50 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
We have two water turtles. If you're looking for a quiet, easygoing pet, I'm not sure you could do better. But, they're also boring if you're looking for a pet your son could have a lot of interaction with. The only times my kids get to actually play with them is when we're cleaning the tank and there isn't much they can do with them even then. The kids love to lay on the floor though and watch them swim and lay around.

Couple things to keep in mind, besides the fact that they can carry salmonella. Some states do not allow turtles to be sold as pets. I know Tess wasn't able to get her daughter one in Minnesota. Second, they bite, lol. That was a big shocker to me when the lady at the pet store told us that. So you'd have to be careful if you had one to watch that your son isn't getting near there mouths.

We'd chosen a turtle for Caleb because we thought he was old enough to have his own pet and we were looking for something that wasn't as active as our dog. We actually decided on a turtle for Dakota for the same reason you're contemplating it. She'd had gold fish that were dying left and right and we were looking for something that would live more than such a short time.

Good luck!