The Story of Tortie
Tortie was purchased by Grandpa on July 5, 2006 as a birthday gift for his Grandson, Michael. He was a 3-month-old Sulcata Tortoise with a green stripe on his belly. Grandpa paid $150.00 for him.
Tortie had a glass terrarium and a hollow trunk to hide in. He grew very quickly and before long, he didn’t have enough room in has habitat. We decided to place him in the back yard instead of buying a bigger cage. He was so small that we had to place pieces of wood along our back gates to keep him from escaping under the 4” gaps at the bases. When he began living outside, he grew even faster. He ate the grass and we would give him treats such as bananas and strawberries. If you had red polish on your toes and you were barefooted, Tortie would try to bite them. We discovered he didn’t like carrots or radishes. It wasn’t long before he was too big to escape under the gates and we were able to remove the logs.
Outside, we had two major concerns. 1) We had a swimming pool. We were concerned that he might get too close and fall in. He would probably sink to the bottom if that were the case. However, he never got too close. 2) We had pool maintenance and lawn maintenance services. We were concerned that someone would leave a gate open and Tortie would escape. Fortunately, that didn’t happen either, at least not until much later. As he grew, he could no longer walk under our patio furniture. He…
