Anyone here have a turtle or tortoise their whole life?

My daughter is looking to get a pet tortoise, and the books we read on the subject warn us that it can be a lifetime commitment. I know in theory tortoises can be spectacularly long-lived, but I suspect in the real world, very few people head into the assisted-living facility accompanied by the tortoise they got when they were eight.

But then, what do I know? That’s why I ask: anyone out there expecting to be buried by their childhood tortoise friend? Stand up and be counted!

My grandmother had her turtle for around 40 years. I don’t know how old it was when she got it or what species it was. IIRC, someone she knew abducted it from a desert somewhere and gave it to her when they didn’t want it anymore. I can’t remember exactly when it died, but she probably got it in the early or mid 60s and they both died in the mid-2000s.

I think the main reasons you don’t see a lot of people keeping the same tortoise for that many years are because 1) Most people didn’t even have tortoises at all back then - tortoises seem to be more common pets now
and
2) A lot of people out there will get rid of their pet when they get bored of it.
I got my own tortoise off Craigslist because a grandma had bought the tortoise for her grandchild and the child became bored with it.

For those reasons, I would say to definitely think it over very carefully and try to make sure your daughter is responsible enough to keep a pet even after the novelty wears off.
Also, get her a Russian tortoise, NOT a sulcata. For some reason a lot of people like the idea of having a sulcata even though they grow to be enormous and are powerful enough to demolish fences and such.
Russian tortoises stay small and are very easy to take care of. Also I think they usually only live about 50 years so your daughter might not be elderly when it finally dies.

My girlfriend’s 33 and she’s had her tortoise since she was 5. Her mother looks after it now.

I got a turtle when I was ten. It was already an adult turtle when I got it and it lived an additional nineteen years. I suspect it might have lived longer if I took better care of it.

If I had ever thought about having a tortoise as pet, this video would have squashed that thought flat:

I* knew* what the tortoise was doing, but it took me a moment to realize just what that purple thing was! EWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

http://www.wonderquest.com/LifeSpan-MaxMin.htm

I read somewhere that we really don’t know the lifespan of the giant tortoise because they outlive the researchers.

wikicite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortoise#Lifespan

My parents got a Reeves turtle in 1983 from a used pet store when he was around 15. He’s approximately 44 now, 22 years older than me. He lives with my mom, who unfortunately doesn’t take the best care of him, but as far as I’m aware he’s ok. Assuming he lives as long as his potential life span (120 years or so) I’ll inherit him when my mom is no longer able to care for him or dies.

Used pet store?

My aunt is the president of a doberman rescue. I like to jokingly call them ‘used dogs’. Since CatherineZeta mentioned the turtle was 15 when she got it, I’m guessing it’s humane society/rescue type place.

My whole life or its whole life?

I used to have a job which involved running reptile handling sessions- a truly depressing number of people visiting there told me they used to have a tortoise but it died, often in the same breath as saying how long they could live.

The average time it takes a badly cared-for tortoise to die seems to be approx. 5 years- one year if severely neglected. I think people assume that if it lived that long, they weren’t doing anything wrong- I just think they’re very slow to respond to malnourishment.

My parents’ oldest is one they’ve had for 18 years, and is probably around 40-50. I did meet a few people who had them for 30+ years- here, they were popular in the 70’s-80’s, but only a tiny minority of owners kept them alive that long. Research needs properly if you do decide to get one, and it could outlive you, but don’t bet on it.

I briefly worked for a woman with a small tortoise/turtle named Milhouse she acquired when she was 8. She was 45-50 when I knew her, and Milhouse was still alive. Last I heard he was still trundling along, so he’d be… 60+ now.

I guess she took proper care of him.

That’s a good point. Unfortunately a lot of tortoises end up getting improper diets or unhealthy housing environments because people don’t know any better.
A lot of people try to feed their tortoise things like dog food, which is really not appropriate.

Here is a good site to start with in getting advice on caring for torts: http://www.tortoisetrust.org

This one focuses on russian tortoises in particular: http://russiantortoise.org/

When my sister was in preschool and I was about seven, a box turtle turned up in the schoolyard. We adopted him and named him Charlie, and if the old story about turtles is true, Charlie was the same age as me because he had seven rings on his shell. Unfortunately, Charlie always was always the wild one (for a box turtle), and after many years of escape attempts, he finally dug under the backyard gate and is now roaming free somewhere at age 30.

Later in my childhood we adopted two hatchling box turtles from a neglectful situation at daycare. Apples and Dipper, as we named them, turned out to be brother and sister and had an incestuous affair that led to several baby box turtles. Apples (the male) and offspring were adopted out to various friends, and Dipper still lives happily in my parents’ backyard. She is around 20 now and comes to the back door and peers through the screen when she wants food.

A friend of mine’s girlfriend is a herpetologist and a hard core turtle person. I was actually a board member of a turtle society for a short period of time. In any case, my friend’s next door neighbor had a California desert tortoise. She was over 80, and when she died, my buddy inherited the tortoise. She supposedly got it when she was a young kid, and back then, it was no problem gathering tortoises out of the desert. His girlfriend says that this tortoise is indeed over 80 years old.

My friend has another tortoise that actually disappeared for a year or more. It might have gotten stolen and then returned, but in any case he’s got a couple of California desert tortoises. About two years ago, the 80 year old tortoise laid a clutch of eggs. Apparently, it’s illegal to move the eggs, even though it was in his front yard, and his girlfriend has a permit for rehabilitating western pond turtles. I offered to build a protective cage and a heating system, but he declined. Alas, there were no hatchlings.

I’m also pretty sure that when I was in the Galapagos, there was a turtle at the sanctuary that they claimed Charles Darwin saw. Could be just a tourist joke, but also I might be conflating it with that one in Australia.

According to my mom it was a mom n’ pop type pet store where they took in animals whose owners couldn’t care for them anymore as well as having regular pet store pets and pet store things. My turtle’s original family moved and couldn’t take him with them.

Broomstick****, I love the name Milhouse.

My turtle (Norton) used to have a brother named Millard who was a red eared slider but unfortunately he passed away when I was a baby, so I have no memory of him.

ETA: I guess I shouldn’t even really call him “mine” as he was acquired 6 years before I was born, I guess he’s just the family turtle. My mom got custody when my parents divorced.