All Turtles Message Board

The Parker Clan · Guest Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 1

Hello All,
We recently purchased a new home that was built by a local petshop owner its on 2 1/2 acres and he was obviously using part of the land as breeding ponds. However, when he sold he left the turtles and the people that bought the house from him had no clue what to do with them so they just turned a hose on left it running 24/7 and called it good. Needless to say, when we moved in we had one corner of the property that was about 2000 square feet of 10ft tall cat tails. We hired someone and they cleared it out and we found 8 red earred sliders and two snapping turtles. We put them in a large galvanized pool that was near the swamp and cleaned out an unused koi pond that was closer to the house so that we could keep an eye on them. They seem to be doing OK with the change, but a few do come with issues. We have an older one with two punctures in it's shell and chewed edges. The people had dogs and I think it might have been a chew toy, and one of the smaller ones has brown spots on it's shell that when you touch them the outher dark color of the shell comes off. The spots are on the center ridge line of the shell. Are either of these conditions something to worry about?

That being said, theres a million other questions so here goes:

We live in the high desert in California, The Antelope Valley, will these turtles hibernate or is it too warm for that? They are too large to hibernate inside, most of them being about the size of the average dinner plate. We put a pond de-icer in just incase of a hard freeze. We have been lucky so far it's been a mild winter.

The two snapping turtles are missing!!! could they be hibernating? Is there anyway to find them? When will they resurface?

Right now the pond has a black liner what is the best sub-surface to put in and does it ever have to be changed?

The pond is a good 4 1/2 feet at it's deepest. could we fill some of that in?

What should we be feeding them? Since they have been in the wild more or less, they've been foraging on their own. We've got two different types of "turtle chow" that we have been throwing in and a lot of it seems to be ending up on the bottom of the pond, some feeder fish which most of them seem to be gone and meal worms. Those were mostly for the frogs that we found, but they have all hopped off to greener pastures. Any other suggestions?

They are enjoying the sun and come out during noon day and sun themselves on the banks and in some of the shallow inlets that we didn't fill. They seem to run in packs, or possibly family groups is that possible?

Can we light the pond at night, or will that disrupt their sleeping schedule?

The pond has a canister filer system and some other kind of filter system how long should it be running? The water seems to be getting little murky but is that just normal with turtles?

Any help or suggestions you can give would be greatly appreciated. We're liking the turtles, but want them to be as happy and healthy as possible and no one in town knows anything about them except inside habitation and they are so way beyond that.

We look forward to hearing from any of you.

The Parker Clan Smile

dixieee · Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 6:34 pm Post subject:

welcome to the board Smile

this is just great, taking care of left-over turtles..good job u're doing there Very Happy

ok for the feeding part, plants will help u a lot with it. i suppose they are old enough and don't need too much meat and living food so the few feederfish and worms will do if u keep floating leaves with them.

and about hibernation, sounds like they've lived outdoors long enough to adapt to weather changes. yep the snappers are probably hibernating and u may expect the others to hibernate as well. i wouldn't worry about it cz as i said they seem to know how to manage it (grown up turtles)

basking, yes they like basking and stretching in the sun. sometime they pile over each other to bask so that's normal if it's what u're asking about

lighting the pond might disturb them, do u need to light it??

for the filters, depth, and surface i'm sorry i have no idea about outdoor setups.

good luck with ur co-residents Smile

oh btw could u get pix of the pond and turtles? sounds interesting Smile

_________________
Wed 10/27/2004 is the worst day..i lost my best friend Leo

so now i have a female RES, Green, and a cute stupid male YBS, Mint

5/4/2006 RIP Lemon, u were my first rescue and i'm so proud of u. will never 4get u

CeCe · Level 2 Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 56

Hi

Our turtles over here are slightly different, but i guess we all have outdoor setting and stuff so...

Probably a good idea if you can (and depending howmuch responsibility you want) to put up some fencing to keep preditors out. I just mean like chicken wire. or something

Also the one with a punctured shell should probably be taken to a vet, but then you sorta picked up strays... the puncted shells can lead to both bacterial and parasite infections. Depending on the severity of the crack it can actually kill them.

Your outdoor enclosure should have six or seven things going on. there should be a large area fensed off. In one corner you want to make like some sort of area they can hid in, in the second area you have basking rocks, third area you have rocks and logs for climbing, In the middle of this maybe have a pool. Now if the turtles you own (im from australia so ours live 90% time in water) are more water based, then allow for the pool to be deep enough for them to have a swim. keep the black lining but put a nice layer of dirt down as well as they like to dig and there nails wont get caught. All this are should be again fenced off.

The only reason i stress this as you are looking after and making animals more dependant on you your also opening them up to surrounding dangers from other animals dogs, cars children, feet and just getting lost

I agree to keep some feeder fish. Dont get goldfish (kinda cruel as grow to big! but get something slightly smaller and to add some fun a little quicker.

there are alot of good websites out there regarding your turtles but not so much for mine Sad

try this link and let me know what you think

http://www.klsnet.com/index.html - just chuck in turtle in the search this site and heaps will come up.

Just read up on it alittle.

CeCe