In my case, my passion for wild life and agriculture as a child, reflects in the work I now do as an expert supporting livestock farmers, and providing agro-based solutions (like my Excel-VB Ration Formulator<\/a>, Feed Formulation Handbook<\/a>, Excel-VB Poultry Farm Manager<\/a>, my Feed Formulation Home Study Video Series<\/a> etc).<\/p>\n What follows below is a true story about one of my many naughty escapades as a school age child, which illustrates the point I've made above:<\/p>\n One day I caught a small turtle during one of our trips to catch crabs. It was about the size of my palm. I excitedly took it home, and secretly kept and fed it (I think earthworms \u2013 but not sure now) for months.<\/p>\n One day my brother, Femi found out about it. I pleaded with him to say nothing to our parents. He agreed.<\/strong><\/p>\n But later on, when we had one of our few BIG quarrels as kids, he went and told my Dad that I was keeping a tortoise downstairs in the backyard, near the well.<\/p>\n My father was enraged, and called me to ask if it was true. I said it was. That night I got the beating of my life.<\/p>\n We had a Guava tree at the back of the house at Olodi-Apapa, where we lived then. Once you were to be flogged, the tree would \u201csupply\u201d some long slim branches. Oh, how I resented that tree!<\/p>\n After my punishment that night, my father asked me to get the turtle out of the old sink I\u2019d kept it in, and take it to the car.<\/strong><\/p>\n Then he drove right to the middle of the bridge that crossed the Lagoon (I believe it\u2019s called Carter bridge), and asked me to drop the turtle into the water.<\/p>\n My heart bled as I did that, but I had no choice. It was obvious he was greatly upset that I\u2019d brought a turtle home. But I did not know why. He never told me why. To myself I said: \u201cAfterall, it\u2019s not a snake!\u201d<\/p>\n You may wonder why I kept the Turtle a secret in the first place.<\/p>\n In truth, I have no idea. We kept lots of cats (mother - and kittens she put to litter, which we gave out) and a dog in the house for years.<\/p>\n Maybe I anticipated my parents would say no to another pet.<\/p>\n But I must say I never expected such an extreme reaction from my Dad. Many years later, I asked my mother about it, and she explained that the shell of the turtle had some traditional significance he was not comfortable with.<\/p>\n Anyway, that experience of losing the Turtle only made me more interested in aquatic life.<\/strong><\/p>\n 2 decades later, I\u2019ve created my own brand of Natural Self-Cleaning Aquariums\u2122<\/a> that I build for use as learning aids (e.g. to explain concepts like the Nitrogen Cycle, Balanced Ecosystem) in schools and other places.<\/p>\n And between 2000 and 2004, I spent many long hours visiting all sorts of water bodies and aquarium shops, as well as fish farms, collecting, breeding, and rearing - different kinds of beautiful, but hardy, ornamental fish species e.g. Platy, Gourami etc.<\/p>\n In the home I intend to setup for my family in Cotonou, we\u2019re going to have a special aquatic garden (with lighted glass aquarium displays at night) next to the home based Brew Pub we\u2019ll be running. It\u2019s a concept I already tested extensively at our family house in Lagos between 2002 and 2005. So I know it works.<\/em><\/p>\n Read:\u00a0Working As A Farm Hand Enabled Me Create My Self-Cleaning Aquariums<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n This article is based on excerpts from my first Best Practice Parenting Book published in 2014 for sale in print and ebook format via lulu.com\/spotlight\/sdaproducts - click to view the book<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
Secretly Keeping a Pet Turtle (Then Getting Caught & Flogged)!<\/h3>\n
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