Summarizing Several Unusual Questions About Turtle Keeping - Have You Encountered Them?
Life is always accompanied by problems, so we are always encountering and solving problems. I believe all tortoise friends will also encounter problems or problems will appear unexpectedly. It's hard to avoid.
However, some problems can be easily solved by simply consulting materials or considering them logically. Many tortoise friends who have communicated with the editor have posed questions that really make the editor laugh or cry. Today, I'll briefly summarize it, without any intention, just hoping that everyone can find the right direction when solving problems.
1. About hybridization. Mixing is what many tortoise keepers do, and it's normal. So, everyone wants to keep a male and a female tortoise, which is also a reasonable ratio. However, some tortoise keepers raise a Chinese tortoise and say, ‘Let’s pair it with a Brazilian tortoise, so that they can hybridize.’ Or they keep an alligator and pair it with a Chinese or Brazilian tortoise. It’s full of anticipation to see their offspring. Listen, have you ever heard of reproductive isolation? Turtles aren’t the only ones who can interbreed! Hybrid tortoises are species with a certain degree of intersection in their biological “kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species” that can interbreed, such as many Chinese tortoises can interbreed, and many Brazilian-faced tortoises can interbreed. Hybrid tortoises are not easily successful in breeding. So, as long as you search for relevant information and understand them, you can know it.
2. Feeding is also varied. If you feed too much, will it cause the tortoise to die? Or will it cause problems? If you are worried that it will die or cause problems, why feed it so much? It’s like regretting doing a fun thing, and then wanting to go back and do it. You should think about it before doing it, or take responsibility for the consequences. Will it cause problems if you observe it later?
I dug earthworms or caught fish, but they’re not clean. I’ve already fed them to the tortoise, what should I do? You ask me? I think should I give it a bath? Since you know the food source is problematic, why feed it, and then worry about it?
Don’t talk about ham sausage, and there are also questions about whether it’s okay to feed cockroaches or mealworms, and many more. I didn’t eat everything with the tortoise, and I wouldn’t conduct experiments on tortoises. If you’re curious, you can try it yourself or ask tortoise keepers with similar exploration spirit. The editor really has no answer!
3. Environmental issues. Some tortoise keepers like to keep small tortoises, feeling a connection, but they’re hindered by the slow growth of tortoises. So they buy big tortoises, but when they get home, they find that the tortoises are too big for the small container, so they ask, ‘What should I do?’ You can’t put them in a small container, you must change to a bigger one, right? Environmental issues caused by an unsuitable environment will keep causing troubles later. This is really a waste of worry.
4. And there’s the issue of anthropomorphism. Why don’t turtles like to play with new tortoises? Why are they afraid of me, and don’t hurt me? Why don’t they sleep on land or in water? These are all questions. It’s good to have emotions, but they’re reptiles, so don’t anthropomorphize them, they have their own nature, and they’re not a species created by you that you need to control their growth.
There are many other miscellaneous issues, and I won’t list them. Haha, it’s a bit embarrassing. I can only say that there’s a lot of information available on the internet, and there are also areas where even the big shots don’t know. Either you explore them yourself, or they’re obvious logical problems. These are often not problems, so we should look at things from a scientific and objective perspective, not too subjective or self-important. These ‘problems’ are just worries you create yourself. Please be calm and analyze them, and then they don’t exist.
