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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Daughter moving out and won’t take her tortoise

180 replies

Questionsquestions23 · 03/07/2025 17:20

My daughter got a tortoise when she was 18 - she’s now 22. She’s moving out in September and says she can’t take him. I have done most of the work for him. I get up every morning and forage for healthy greens for him change up his water - I do the same when I get in from work. I prepare him for hibernation, give him a bath a few times a week.

daughter went to uni and looked after him in the holidays but since leaving she works full time so it me.
the tortoise is about 25 so will Probably out live me.
I don’t want this responsibility!
what can I do?

OP posts:
T1Dmama · 06/07/2025 10:31

Nearly50omg · 03/07/2025 18:26

Please learn what your tortoise actually should be eating!!!! Download the tortoise table app and stop poisoning your tortoise!!! NO they CANT just eat anything! There’s a LOT of vegetables etc they can’t eat

i inherited mine from my aunt, she’d rescued it and had it years, it
ate all sorts at hers, we kept it on our sunken patio and planted green veg for him to help himself to. He must’ve been in his
70’s or older when he didn’t awake from hibernation.
My mum then bought two and kept them
awake with heat lamps all year, had them a few years but rehomed.
I had an ex who had them just wondering around the lounge free.
They don’t need to be as time consuming as OP is making them.

T1Dmama · 06/07/2025 10:38

Could you plant some weeds in flower pots in your garden? Saves all the foraging…
I be got a
massive pot in my garden growing dandelions for my guinea pigs which get plucked occasionally for them

Timetochillnow · 06/07/2025 10:42

SayLaveee · 04/07/2025 06:04

You sound like a wonderful owner, thank you for caring and looking after him the way you do.

In your shoes I would 100% not want your daughter to take him. He could have a truly horrible life living in some flat somewhere with a young woman who begrudges his existence.

I think you should either find a sanctuary or pay a local kid who loves animals to forage for him and look after him every day. That would be an awesome pocket money job for a responsible child.

Great idea but her daughter should pay a local child the carers pocket money!!

caringcarer · 06/07/2025 10:47

They can eat cut up tomatoes, dandelion leaves and lettuce leaves.My family had one when I was a child and it loved to eat bright coloured flower heads. I've forgotten the flower but a neighbour who was a vet told us it could eat them.

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 06/07/2025 12:18

caringcarer · 06/07/2025 10:47

They can eat cut up tomatoes, dandelion leaves and lettuce leaves.My family had one when I was a child and it loved to eat bright coloured flower heads. I've forgotten the flower but a neighbour who was a vet told us it could eat them.

Nasturtiums ?
Edible for humans too ,

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