Yep. Get ready for a story.
It started with a tiny quarter size turtle that my brother won in those chinatown fair from a ring toss game. He went to college and left the turtle behind so I decided to take care of it.
The first winter it got an upper respiratory infection because it just lived in a tiny container with mo water heater. I didn't know anything about turtles at the time. I kept it on my chest for warmth for 2-3 nights and when I slept and during the day, I changed out the water to warm water every few hours. It recovered and started growing.
So I finally upgraded to a giant tank with heater and everything. And felt now the tank is like a mansion for 1 turtle...so it needed friends. I ordered a turtle online from a breeder and specified that I wanted a 2 inche turtle so that it'll be the same size so they won't fight. The breeder called me back and said they have a 2 inch one but the quality is not good enough to sell. I said what do you mean? He said it's tail is damaged, it got nipped when it was a baby, he only have a 3 inch turtle. So I'm thinking of course I want the perfect one not damaged.
Then after getting off the phone, I just thought about that poor turtle and how if I don't want it, nobody will. I called the breeder back and said I'll take the little one because noone else might and to my surprise he said he'll give me the 3 inch one but also the little one for free. So now there is 3 turtles.
As I did more and more research, I became fascinated with tortoises and there were these cherry head tortoises from brazil there is bright red head and super cute so I bought 2...and now we have 5.
And then over the years, i became known as the turtle guy amongst my friends. And eventually with time, I was having friends who had turtles and can no longer take care of em and asked if I can adopt them and eventually I adopted 3 more.
And that's how I got 8 turtles. I also fell I'm love with just animals in general and eventually I had about 25+ pets from lizards to geckos to birds to hamsters.