Turtle

This time it wasn't the kids, it was the mom that brought home the baby animal/reptile. We had box turtles in our yard when we lived in West Texas, and we loved them, so when I saw this cute little baby while out jogging, I just couldn't resist. I brought him home only to discover, after doing a bit of research, that he's a red eared slider. (We really don't know if it's a he or a she, but we generally refer to it as a boy.) This means that he's an aquatic turtle, and needs to be in the water half the time.


A friend let us borrow their aquarium, so we figured that we'd keep him for a month and watch him grow. Then, we'll release him into a nearby pond. He sure is cute, but I really don't think that he wants to spend his life in an aquarium in some one's home. Besides that, I'm already tired of making everyone wash their hands really well after handling him.
We went to the pet store and bought some turtle food for him. He seems to really like it. We don't have a filter on the tank, so it's necessary to wash it out every day.


He really likes to hide under his rock most of the day.As expected, he's a pretty good swimmer.

Too Bad

As expected, the baby bird died in the night. We managed to keep him alive for two days, but either he really didn't like cat food, or perhaps he just couldn't survive without his mom. The kids seemed okay with it, and I'm sure that the experience didn't deter them from bringing home another needy orphan.

Baby Bird

I'm always complaining that my kids don't play outside as much as I'd like them to (my fault, I know, I should kick them out and lock the doors). Maybe it's a good thing, because when they do play outside, they bring homes things such as this recently hatched baby bird. They really wanted to try feeding it, so we soaked a piece of dry cat food in some water, and fed it with a dropper. At one point I though we had killed it for sure. It's throat was swollen to the size of a small grape with the food we had given it. Within an hour it had managed to swallow it, and was asking for more.
Amazingly enough, it lived through the night. I can't stand to let it starve to death, and I'm not going to intentionally kill it, so what can I do besides keep feeding it?

It's really quite an ugly little critter. One of those, "it's so ugly it's cute" things.
It doesn't have it's eyes open yet, and is mostly bald. I'm guessing that it's one of those little brown birds that are everywhere around here.
The cry for food!