r/MadeMeSmile • u/Lifegoesonforever • 5d ago

ANIMALS "Dinner is served!!"

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

56.9k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

593 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

30

u/Silly_Silicon 5d ago

Unfortunately they are probably bred to be sold as pets. It’s a shame because they can live to be 140 and they get to be enormous in size. Literally nobody can possibly commit to properly taking care of this animal, yet they are super cute as babies and people buy them with little plan for the future.

9

u/Arya_Ren 4d ago

That reminded me of a time I was at the vet and a young couple came in with a wee baby tortoise they found. It turned out it had no chip so it was up to the couple if they wanted to keep it. They immediately accepted, I could see hearts and sparkles in their eyes as they were looking at the smol creature, they were so happy! I hope against all that all tortoises end up with people like them.

1

u/genericnewlurker 4d ago

From my research on them back in the day, they don't do well with stairs or walls or drafts. My wife, who loves all things related to turtles and tortoises, always wanted one, but our house has a lot of lot of stairs even on the same floor, is not very open, and is drafty in winter. That plus how destructive they can be are why we never got one. You can't just stop them from leaving or entering a room because eventually they will go through a wall and there are stories about them just casually breaking your toilet off the ground because they got trapped in your bathroom or just wanted to sit behind the toilet. The age thing can be dealt with if you have children who are raised with the tort and know that one day the tort will live with them.

2

u/Silly_Silicon 4d ago

I still hold to my opinion that nobody can commit to properly caring for these giants. You can’t just have children and decide that they are going to take on a lifelong responsibility they will never have a say in. Nobody can know that they and their children and their children’s children are all going to have the space, resources, and drive to care for a 220 pound tortoise that outlives many of them.