Info needed

Herpguy55 · #1 (**permalink**) 04-27-2005, 04:52 AM

I am bringing home a turtle from school tomorrow it is being mistreated by students and not properly cared for, i asked if i could take it home to give it a better life and they agreed. I am going to house it in a 30 gal rubermaid, but need info on its heat humidity diet etc i am not for sure what kind it is but i think it is a three-toed box turtle, or a eastern box turtle, i only saw it for a brief moment because it was burried by a few kids but by the time i got it dug back up i had to go to class. well any information would be great thanks

JuliusSqueezer · #2 (**permalink**) 04-27-2005, 05:11 AM

Well which is it? Does it have 3 toes? That's a pretty good indicator

Herpguy55 · #3 (**permalink**) 04-27-2005, 02:28 PM

lol i wasnt for sure i only saw it for a brief moment but now i am pretty sure it is a eastern box turtle now that i have it. It hasnt came out of its shell because it was very cold out when i got it this morning but by just looking at the shell i am sure it is an eastern. Thanks

Herpguy55 · #4 (**permalink**) 04-28-2005, 12:56 PM

he is an eastern box turtrle and i am building an out door habitate for him in the summer and i have a 30 gallon rubbermaid setup for winter, but i still need to know temps/humidity, diet, lifespan, size, and other houseing requirments,

JuliusSqueezer · #5 (**permalink**) 04-28-2005, 02:44 PM

They are omnivores. You can feed them pretty much anything green except lettuce. Avoid the gassy stuff like broccoli though. fruits and berries in the mix is good. Go sparingly on bananna. once or twice a week add an earthworm or two, and/or meal worms, fresh killed cockroaches and crickets, small pink mice... for protein. slugs are a favorite too.

Temps...like any reptile, they need a gradient. For easterns, I'd say somewhere mid 70s to mid 80s is a good gradient. You need a night drop temp into the low 70s but NEVER below 70 except in the winter or they get RI and die. If you give them a basking spot above that( 88-90), make sure it's not overheating the other favorite hangouts. They may use it from time to time but likely not often. They root around on the cool forest floors and avoid heat for the most part.

YOU MUST hibernate them through the winter. when the day-night cycle changes to the shorter winter days, the turtles sense this and hibernate. If you haven't cooled them to about 65-67 degrees, their metabolism remains high and they starve to death.

Lifespan is a non issue. If you take good care of it, you likely won't be around when it dies or will be way too old and feable to take care of it any longer. 60-75 years..up to about 100! The largest eastern I have ever seen was maybe 10 inches if that.

Sexing them is easy. Males usually have firey red eyes. But the easy way is to look at the plastron (bottom plate) If it has a deep concave, it is a male. They have to have this big dent to mate because the females tend to walk while they breed and without it, they would fall off

If you want another one, come rake my leaves one day but don't get caught here with one. They are protected in Georgia...although, judging from all the smashed ones you see on our roads, they don't seem to be very protected at all.

JuliusSqueezer · #6 (**permalink**) 04-28-2005, 02:56 PM

Oh...another note. Don't get your earth worms from a bait store. Dig them up fresh where you know where they came from. I did a float one time on worm dirt from a bait shop and it was crawling with all kinds of nasties. TONS of tape worm eggs, round worms, hook worms, pin worms...you name it... and some other little nasties that I never could ID...some kinda of protazoa I think. They looked like little coffee beans. I'm guessing that the worm farmers use some kind of fecal compost in their worm beds. They should check their animals lol. Crickets from the bait store seem to be ok. They all get them from the same places the petstores do I think. They come in the same boxes anyway. I'm also sure that bait stores vary on the nastyness of worms but the one box I checked out several years ago would have made a great science project. hmm the irony ...worms with worms.

JuliusSqueezer · #7 (**permalink**) 04-28-2005, 03:10 PM

Yet another note. I'm sure there are thousands of caresheets online. I've heard an alarming amount of people claim over the years that the caresheets all say to feed them dog food and cooked chicken so I wouldn't put too much weight on the commonly regurged "caresheets" Bad information is like a virus. It spreads fast and spreads far. As a kid, I almost always had turtle pens and kept, rehabed etc probably a thousand or so but definatly several hundred eastern box turtles at least for awhile. Growing up in Georgia, I always had the luxury of just letting them go in the back yard or back where I found them...which was usually in the back yard lol.

Herpguy55 · #8 (**permalink**) 04-29-2005, 02:37 PM

lol thank you for all your help julius, it is greatly appricitated by me and my new scally friend! I am building him an out door pen, by my shed, it will be 10ft L x 2ft T x 3ft D. I want to try and get a female or two because i would like to breed him but i will have to wait a little while until i get the money and the room to keep them both in, do you know how many eggs are in a clutch? do they burry thier eggs? Thanks again for all you help,

-Kody

Mark_scuba · #9 (**permalink**) 04-30-2005, 05:10 PM

Mine love to eat squash, And if you want to mate em you have to hibernate em ...
Very carefully and controlled hibernation....
www.boxturtlesite.org
try that site for all your info needs

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