The only kind of turtle that I have ever had was the painted turtle. When I was a little kid, they used to sell them in dime stores, and they only cost about a dollar, maybe less. I think the store made their money by selling us all of the turtle food, the terrarium to keep the turtle in, and any other accessories we needed.
These little turtles were only and inch or two across, so they must have been very young babies, and the back of the shell was always painted with some sort of picture. So, they were actually "painted" painted turtles. They never seemed to live very long; so maybe the turtle food that they sold in the store was not very healthy for the turtle after all.
Painted turtles were native where I lived, and in the spring, we would often see them crawling across the road to find the spot where they wanted to lay their eggs.
Sometimes we would stop and catch one and let the kids keep it for a day or so, and then we put it back again so it could live in the wild like it was supposed to do.
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