What's a good first turtle ?

Question

I want a land turtle or tortoise that's easy to care and stays at good size i don't want a 100 pound tortoise. any ideas? thanks

Answer 1

The first thing you need to do is determine which you want..a turtle or tortoise.  I prefer tortoises because they don't require water.  Less smell and much easier to care for.  My daughter volunteers at a local reptile rescue center and we have adopted both.  We had an Asian Box Turtle and we had a Greek tortoise.  If you decide you want a tortoise, the Greeks are great!!  They have incredible personalities..real friendly and seem to form bonds with their owners.  I'm not sure how big they get, because ours had been abused before we adopted him and never reached full growth.  He was 8 inches long when we lost him due to the abuse he had endured :(

Getting them all set up is expensive and kinda difficult, but then once you have everything, they are fairly easy to care for.   Real easy for a first time owner.  

Answer 2

Russian tortoises are really cool to have and they stay a good size hope that helps

Answer 3

Box turtles are definitely more work. They need water and they are not a beginner turtle. Tortoises are beginner turtles. If you look on any website most of the tortoises are beginner tortoises. Russian tortoises have great personality's and are very fun to watch. The males grow to 4 to 6 inches and females grow 6 to 8 inches some people say 10 inches for females. Greek are also pretty good tortoises. You can go on to www.turtleforum.com and then go to turtle care at the top then care sheets at the end and see what kind you want, the tortoise section is at the bottom. Also there are some on petco about tortoises.