A tale of two tortoises

A Eunice tortoise ran away.
Sounds like an oxymoron, right? How could something so slow “run” away?
Marlene Harrison, of Eunice, said, “She must have gotten out late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. I built them a new cage of PVC pipe, and when the female gets ready to lay her eggs, they get aggressive. She was testing the cage and pushed her way out. It was the first time she’s gotten out, and someone found her Tuesday morning. She was in front of the John Deere place in the middle of the road.”
Among Harrison’s many pets, which also include dogs, birds and fish, Harrison owns two African spurred tortoises, Clairessa and Bubba. Clairessa weighs about 60 pounds, is 15 years old, and Harrison has had her for two years. Bubba is 10 years old and weighs about 50 to 55 pounds. Harrison raised him from a baby.
“They only weigh 1-ounce when they are born, and they are the third largest land turtle in the world,” Harrison said.
She added, “The hardest part of keeping them is keeping them in a pen.”
The breed of tortoise is native to the Sahara Desert and can live up to 150 years or more. According to Harrison, the tortoises eat vegetables, hay and grass, but feed primarily on vegetables. Harrison said Clairessa likes Romaine lettuce, and Bubba’s favorite vegetable is green beans.
“You can feed them the pads of a prickly pear cactus, but mine eat the flower instead,” Harrison said. “They are probably the easiest pet I’ve ever had. They are not like water turtles, which you have to clean a lot. These tortoises are not nearly as messy.”
Even though Clairessa’s jaunt about the neighborhood was her first — and hopefully only — great escape, Bubba has gone on walkabout on three previous occasions.
“The first time he got out, he was gone for about six months,” Harrsion said. “Everybody was looking for him. My husband finally found him in the back of the yard when he was cutting grass. The next time, he was gone for about six weeks, and he got caught up in a neighbor’s fence just down the road. The last time, he was down the road toward the old Dresser Plant, but he was just gone for just a few weeks.”
“When I started putting fliers up when he got out, people would look at me and say, ‘He’s in a pot somewhere.’”
Harrison’s love for turtles began when she was just 3 years old.
“We lived in Arizona, and that’s where I found my first box turtle,” she said. “It started back then. I’ve always been interested in turtles. I grew up in Colorado, and water turtles were a quarter at the 10-cent store back then. When I saw the baby tortoises at a pet store in Lafayette, I had to had to have one.”
Harrsion paid $200 for her first tortoise and took the creature home, but as Bubba grew, he started breaking out of his pen behind Harrision’s home.
“I wondered if tortoises were like dogs — if I got a female, would Bubba stay around,” she said. “I found a female online that was for sale in Arizona, and that’s where my husband works, so he picked her up and brought her home.”
Harrison paid $1,000 for the Clairessa, who was 13-years-old. Their owner wondered if the two tortoises would breed, but several people Harrison spoke to thought Bubba might not be old enough. But such was not the case. Clairessa laid her first clutch of 21 eggs last August. Harrison collects the eggs, incubates them until they hatch and now several other Eunice residents are also owners of African spurred tortoises.
“They make great pets for kids,” Harrison said. “The parents are just as excited, too. They are low cost pets. You don’t have to let them out of the house. My grandkids love them. Vet Tim Deshotel has some for his kids. He has helped me so much with the Clairessa and Bubba. Clairessa sprained her leg in transport from Arizona, and he fixed her up.”