Friday's Eye Candy

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Sep 26, 2008
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Here's the second knife that Mrs. Martin did for me. At my request, she did this one with tortoises as the subject.
In 1986, I purchased a small (4" long) Greek Tortoise female that I named "Baby". My son's ex-wife and I converted a large portion of their back yard (around 3000 square feet of space) into a dedicated tortoise habitat. Their home is only 125 feet or so from mine and actually belongs to me. A few years went by and I aquired a mature male and the fun began. I now have a colony of around 30 of them, all but the original two and another male I adopted were hatched right there in the enclosure.

They are pretty special creatures and contrary to what many people think, are not like having a pet rock! Some of them have great personalities.

Anyway, here's the really special, Camel Bone 500 Duke.

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Again, WOW!!!:eek: That is spectacular in every way. Youre a lucky man Plum:thumbup: Great background story as well:)
 
Great story, Dave but no picture of what a turtle enclosure looks like. Don't have an idea.
 
You have nice toys, Dave.

And I would not mind seeing a pic some time of that turtle village, please.
 
Great story, Dave but no picture of what a turtle enclosure looks like. Don't have an idea.

Good idea Ed, I have hundreds of photos, but none of the enclosure itself in my Photobucket albums. I'll post some of them when I get them into Photobucket.

Here's a start. The one I'm hand feeding is a breeding size female, but they get a little larger than that. The males are alot smaller. The brown water dish is a coffee can lid, so that will give you a little scale. I've found nests hatching and brought the unhatched one's inside to keep an eye on them. The hatchlings are a great snack for crows, so we try to keep the tiny one's protected inside until they get a little larger if we find them in time.

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Another beauty Plumber, she really makes them look nice! Love the pics of the Tortoises, how big is your biggest and how old?
 
Another beauty Plumber, she really makes them look nice! Love the pics of the Tortoises, how big is your biggest and how old?

The largest and oldest is my original female, Baby. I think she was about 4 when I bought her and that was in '86 which would make her about 29 years old. She's about 11" shell length but some of her first daughters are getting to be just about the same size. The first picture is Baby on the right and one of her daughters on the left, both busy laying eggs. The rest of the pictures are of the enclosure. It looks pretty shabby and over grown, but that's the way we leave it. All the plants and grasses are edible and we don't have to start supplimenting their feed until late summer when it's all either eaten or died off. We have some smaller enclosures in there also to separate the little guys so they don't just dissapear into the yard. We like to keep track of them for at least the first few years.

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LOL. No idea why I typed that. My apologies. Nice Testudo graeca pics.

You got it Casey. We've never been able to precisely pin down which sub-species they are. I think they are a hybred mixture and the original male and female are different.
 
VERY nice Duke and cool tortoises Dave!

For some reason, when I think of a "tortoise" it conjurs up visions of the HUGE ones that can weigh hundreds of pounds!

A friend has a collection of "box turtles" and they look very similar to your tortoises. Last time I was there, they were going into hibernation for the winter. Turtles and tortoises are COOL!

Peter
 
Very cool Dave! You've had her for 25 years, you've got to be attached to her like she's a child of yours! Heck, she's only 4 years younger than me:D That hatching photo is amazing, thanks for sharing.
 
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now that just looks like the best excuse for not mowing the lawn i have ever seen.

i'm a sucker for the turtles and tortoises. i have one full grown red ear and a baby Mississippi map. it must be nice living in ca, they can roam free all year. not the case up here

the tortes will come once i'm out of school and back on the farm.
 
You've got your very own wildlife refuge. Raptors and tortoises with matching knives.

Do you have any problems with predators, as far as the tortoises are concerned?

Oh yes. Crows are a big problem for the hatchlings. I had a tiny youngster in a raised planter box in my front yard out for some sun one day and a crow swooped down and grabbed it. Lucky, I was sitting on the porch and scared the bird and it dropped the baby. Otherwise it would have been a gonner. I worked on a solar power generating station near Barstow, Ca. years back and they gave us about a four hour class on the desert tortoise. We were told that one of the biggest threats to the species was the crows and ravens getting the hartchlings.

In 2006 and for a couple of years after that, I had a big problem with something getting into the enclosure and digging up the nests. For a couple of years, I had no nests or hatchlings survive. After I took the pictures that shows the two females laying eggs, I sunk a wire cage with a top on it about 8 to ten inches in the ground around the nests, but within a couple of days, something dug under the wire and destroyed both nests. I've never seen or been able to figure out what it is that's getting them. It must be able to smell the eggs because when the female gets through covering up the nest, you can't even tell that they are there.
 
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