Hello,
I have aquired 10 tortoises all within the last month from a dear old 88 year old lady who has dementia and has gone into a care home.
She had stayed in her freezing cold static home for the last 6 months waiting until her tortoises were an ok size to move safely - in her opinion and also making sure that someone was willing to take them all in together for a forever home so they are not moved around from place to place.
She was very sweet bless her and unfortunately didn't know that they are meant to have uvb lighting and heat when indoors, I have a adult male leopard tortoise, 6 baby leopard tortoises approx 3-4 months old, 2 hermann tortoises and a juvenile sulcata.
Unfortunately the mother of the baby leopard tortoises was killed by a fox as Beryl - the lady wasn't aware they would eat them and said they were always hanging around but she never knew why.
Anyway, as Beryl's health was deteriorating she has now gone into her care home where she can get better care and be looked after properly and I am now looking after all of the tortoises.
Obviously we have talked things over as a family- myself and my two children and we have decided that we are going to try to raise the funds to buy and get built a insulated shed with the necessary equipment and a protected garden area for them all so they can hopefully live their lives to the full here and have this as their forever home.
My two children have volunteered to give up their pocket money and also even volunteered to have a smaller Christmas just to try and help the tortoises get their forever home built and help grant Beryl's wish.
We have ensured Beryl that she can come and visit them whenever she wishes as these were her only companions from what we understand.
Our local garden centre has already volunteered to sort us out some tortoise friendly plants to have around their garden area's once built which is very kind of them and we have had a local company come out and look at the area we have available and have quoted us for the big insulated shed for them and building the garden fencing so all predator safe, the quote has come in at £2007.00.
My children's school has also heard about it and also know Beryl and have kindly done a bric a brac sale to help raise some funds and so now we are just trying to raise approx £1500.00 to be able to get it all ordered and set up for them.
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We ourselves have been out and bought them lots of uvb lighting, ceramic heat lamps, food bowls, water bowls, hides etc etc and it is costing me each week atm to feed them also - we are hoping that once all garden area done and planted eventually they will substain most of their food from that.
Beryl always sang to the tortoises for some reason and so now my daughter has decided she is going to do it also and has learnt the same song so that the tortoises feel at home lol, they are currently all in our house and it feels like they have taken over but they are great.
Please, please help and give as much or as little as you can to help keep all of the tortoises together here and get their forever home built and grant Beryl's wish.
I can also accept donations by paypal to [email protected] or if anyone wishes they can send a cheque donation or any type of donation - food, calcium dust, dried flowers, mazuri etc all available on ebay to here for the tortoises, I can provide address for anyone interested in doing this.
Thank you for reading this, i will try and keep everyone updated with pics etc.