Reply by Buffysmom — 2020-01-12 21:37:02 GMT

Thanks so much. They’ve been eating some about once a week for the last month. I have everything the ways you suggest except their heat sources are from below. I’ve had to separate all 3 into their own enclosures due to aggression & am unable to provide heat from above One goes into her water on her own a lot, the other 2 I place in their water every morning. They are peeing & pooping a bit nearly every day in their waters.
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1.1 Blue Tongue Skinks Indigo, Azure
1.1 Bearded Dragons J.J. & Missy
1.1 Eastern Box Turtles Squirtle & Yurtle
1.1 Pacman Frogs Tilicum & Buffy the Cricket Slayer
0.0.1 European Green Toad Lucy
0.0.1 Red Eyed Tree Frog Scarlet
0.0.1 Green Tree Frog Verde
0.1.2 Mossy Frogs Kate Mossy, Oau & Tortula
0.1 Tiger Salamander Sally
1.1 Firebelly Newts Wayne Newton & Thandie Newton
3.1 Cats Baxter, Jasper, Gibson & Zoe

Reply by BoxTurtleFan — 2020-01-12 11:20:26 GMT

Whata are the temperatures in your enclosure? Try to keep the temperatures at around 75°F inside and provide a basking spot with around 85-90°F with heat coming from a heat lamp or ceramic heat emittor. Do not use bottom heating elements.
If your indoor temperatures are lower, the turtle may think it is time to hibernate and will stop eating and get weaker over time. Also make sure to soak them in warm water every day, ideally in the morning to get their system warmed up.
More details about the temperatues and hibernation guides can be found here: https://boxturtlesite.info/light-temperature-humidity-for-box-turtles/
Temperatures for box turtles

Reply by Buffysmom — 2019-05-19 04:10:39 GMT

Thank you
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1.1 Blue Tongue Skinks Indigo, Azure
1.1 Bearded Dragons J.J. & Missy
1.1 Eastern Box Turtles Squirtle & Yurtle
1.1 Pacman Frogs Tilicum & Buffy the Cricket Slayer
0.0.1 European Green Toad Lucy
0.0.1 Red Eyed Tree Frog Scarlet
0.0.1 Green Tree Frog Verde
0.1.2 Mossy Frogs Kate Mossy, Oau & Tortula
0.1 Tiger Salamander Sally
1.1 Firebelly Newts Wayne Newton & Thandie Newton
3.1 Cats Baxter, Jasper, Gibson & Zoe

Reply by markg — 2019-05-19 00:37:47 GMT

Box turtles that have been kept outside prefer hibernation. So you need to give them a big box of dirt and let them hibernate, even if indoors.

Reply by vichris — 2018-07-31 23:58:46 GMT

>>I haven't posted here in years, but wanted to share this photo. We rescued this little girl off of the highway in the high desert chaparral of west Texas while on a business trip. There were intermittent thunderstorms in the area and within just a few minutes the turtles were all over the roads.
>>
>>It just amazes me that box turtles can live in an area that is so dry. The bottom photo is literally right at my feet as I took the first photo, just looking down as I released her. We saved about 10 that afternoon and saw about 5 more fatalities.
>>
>>If you walked along the grass and blindly grabbed out at the air, your hands would literally be filled with all of the jumping locusts, no doubt a significant food source.
>>
>>Breathtaking place!
>>
Cool thanks for posting last year......ha ha ha
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Vichris
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"- Marcus Aurelius

Reply by kulkat — 2016-11-13 05:13:29 GMT

she's actually fine. Still eating and dipping herself in the water. It was just her markings, no other damage.
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1 wood turtle
3 Eastern box turtles
1 Three Toed box turtle
2 red ear sliders
2 Painted Turtles
2 Australian Whites and 1 Indonesian Whites and 1 Waxy Monkey. 2 Chubby Frogs
3 geckos, 3 rabbits,2 rats, 1 Garter Snake, 3 Weimaraners, 2 kids, 1 husband

Reply by jpm995 — 2016-10-27 23:57:40 GMT

I doubt there's anything you can do, but i would take it to a vet, maybe antibiotics to keep it from getting infected. Is it just the shell markings gone or the entire shell?

Reply by StephF — 2016-07-20 23:55:22 GMT

I stopped posting here ages ago after being harassed and doxxed on a different KS forum.
Between that and a few too many posters looking to buy/sell/trade because the moderator wasn't as present as in the past, the forum stopped being about sharing solid information and became less informative.

Reply by CindySteinle — 2016-05-23 12:17:43 GMT

>>This used to be such a cool place were all the box turtle fans would hang out and share info. What the hell happened? This place is dead where did everyone go? Facebook? Another forum?
>>-----
>>Jeff Benfer
>>gartersnakemorph.com

Activity levels shift, but it gets a bit busier during field herping and baby season.

Whatcha got cooking this year?

Reply by clifton — 2015-09-10 14:22:17 GMT

Yeah, I got them together for a little playdate, to check out their compatibility. As Cheese, the box turtle scampered up to him, Roscoe, the CAWT, took off. Obviously feeling stressed and threatened, Roscoe bolted out of range, actually trying to climb the wall to get out of the (dry) children's pool they were in. Both turtles had been housed separately in this pool at various times, but Roscoe clearly did not appreciate the company. Oddly, when housed in separate containers he responds competitively when Cheese is given food. Won't go near the food if Cheese is visible, but scarfs it down quickly if she is out of sight. There was nothing confrontational about Cheese's approach or posture when she was near Roscoe, just wanting to look at him and interact calmly. Years ago she was very comfortable and used to sit with my little dog, Crackers, nose to nose, bobbing her head contentedly. In fact, their friendship inspired her name. In 2009 after Crackers had died while she was in hibernation, she came up in April and continually waited at the fence around her pen at "their" spot, as if she had missed an appointment. It was sadly touching. This baby is actually quite social.

Reply by boxienuts — 2015-09-08 01:45:02 GMT

You can try it, but you might want to keep an eye on them for a day or two. I tried putting our male greek tortoise in with my box turtles pen. Next day the male greek tortoise was aggressively ramming my male eastern box turtle who was just closed up in his shell. So now the tortoise is kept seperate.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

Reply by clifton — 2015-08-29 03:22:39 GMT

Now comes the dilemma: After mourning the loss of Cheese for a couple of years, I picked up a Central American Wood Turtle. He has utilized the 10' x 10'outside pen. I would like to try to house them together if they get along. Any thoughts on the wisdom or folly of this? Compatibility? Risk of disease? Roscoe (CAWT) is male, Cheese is an old (at least 25 yrs) female Eastern Box Turtle who has missing feet on the right side. Fully healed leg stumps when I got her in about '98. I never let her hibernate till about 2005, thinking she'd have trouble digging in. She proved me wrong.

Reply by boxienuts — 2015-08-29 02:28:07 GMT

Cool story. Think of all the places she went in 3 years. Must have missed those free banana and worm meals.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

Reply by ejhoene — 2015-08-28 02:11:38 GMT

That's awesome!!

Reply by docz — 2015-07-07 01:08:00 GMT

i had great success last year

i suspended a small sand filled terrarium in a 20 high aquarium

the inner unit was set on top of an inverted small flowerpot

i ran 2 aquarium heaters in the water that was even with the top of the sand in the inner terrarium.

one heater was set to 80,
and the other was set to 85 and on a 12 hr on, 12 hr off timer

the eggs were in a depression in the middle of the terrarium and covered with a damp paper towel

the thermal mass of sand was very stable in temperature and i could easily check on the eggs under the papertowel

a sheet of plexiglas acted as a cover over the aquarium

all the eggs hatched

Reply by nickg83 — 2015-06-03 03:27:11 GMT

Thanks Alan, appreciate the help!

Reply by norristhenut — 2015-05-31 18:40:14 GMT

Nick my apologies I read your post to quick, if you have an incubation tanks the way I do it is very carefully dig up the eggs and be sure to keep the correct orientation of the eggs as you place them in a plastic tub, like Tupperware, with vermiculite in the tub, then put that in 10 gallon tank with heater and cover. I keep the temperature around 78-82 degrees opening the top every so often to let off condensation also spray/ mist water over eggs a few times over the incubation period. If you need me to answer anything your not clear on let me know. One of my big females just loaid 5 big eggs around May 18, which is real early, expect them to hatch mid to late July.
Alan

Reply by norristhenut — 2015-05-31 18:29:36 GMT

Until you can get put together, cover eggs with bucket with some weight on it. If you want to incubate them it's a lengthy process with a lot of attention to detail. Contact me by email:
agrafton@neo.rr.com and I'll provide details.
Alan

Reply by boxienuts — 2015-05-05 13:27:06 GMT

Awesome
Would those be from eggs laid last summer or this season already?
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

Reply by boxienuts — 2015-01-04 23:46:49 GMT

Great looking group. Big bad John is best looking of the bunch in my opinion. I like the blue.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

Reply by vichris — 2014-10-21 13:46:00 GMT

Estella is a young female I aquired a few years ago. She is quite shy. She tends to hang out with Sylvia with simular mannerisims. She was a juvie when I first got her but she now seems to be reaching breeding age and size.

IMG_1301-001 by vichris08, on Flickr

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Vichris
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"- Marcus Aurelius

Reply by vichris — 2014-10-11 13:44:39 GMT

>>Hey Vic,
>>
>>I dont keep any personally but this tort was named Princess Clara by her new adoptive family. Just placed her friday. This is a pic with part of her family
>>
>>

Very nice, Is that a Russian Tortise? Kinda hard to tell from the pic.

Looks like the the new family dog is pretty curious about his new roommate. One of our dogs just loves to go to our turtle pen and watch our boxies. He's very curious about them but never tries to get in the pen or shows any sign of agression to them. On occasion we will let one or two of our boxies out in the lawn and our dog Mac will go and sniff them and watch them. He kinda cocks his head when they walk. We think, he thinks they are walking rocks.

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Vichris
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"- Marcus Aurelius

Reply by vichris — 2014-10-11 12:48:08 GMT

Willamina is a small adult female that I traded for when I also aquired Ricotta. She is not shy and is one of my most gregarious turtles. Probably because of that she is the most frequently sighted female being bred. She is usually the last turtle to dig in for the winter brumation and the first to come up in the spring.

IMG_1295-001 by vichris08, on Flickr
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Vichris
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"- Marcus Aurelius

Reply by CindySteinle — 2014-10-06 21:46:51 GMT

Hey Vic,

I dont keep any personally but this tort was named Princess Clara by her new adoptive family. Just placed her friday. This is a pic with part of her family

Reply by vichris — 2014-10-05 18:46:40 GMT

Louise is one of the original 3 turtles that was in my yard when I bought my house. She is large and in charge. She is not at all aggressive but doesn't take any gruff from anyone either. She is definitely not easily intimidated. She's very healthy and always has a good appetite. Here a few pics of her and her with Yeller Head............

IMG_1302-001 by vichris08, on Flickr

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Vichris
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"- Marcus Aurelius

Reply by vichris — 2014-09-24 05:46:50 GMT

Ricotta was acquired in a trade. At the time I had to many males and not enough females so I traded two of my extra males for two females. I had no idea at the time that Ricotta was missing one of her back legs. It looks to be an old injury as it is completely healed and she seems to have adapted to her handicap very well. She is one of the most fearless, bold, and friendly turtles I have. She is also very jealous of any attention you pay to the other turtles. She will try to eat as quickly as she can so she can go snatch food from the other turtles. Her handicap hasn't slowed her down one bit. She has quite the personality.

One spring she developed an ear infection so we took her to a friend who is a herp Vet tech. After opening the infected area the Vet squeezed out some cheesy looking stuff and then cleaned and disinfected the wound. My fiancé mentioned that the "stuff" looked like Ricotta cheese and suggested we name her Ricotta. That's how she got her name.

IMG_1296-001 by vichris08, on Flickr

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Vichris
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"- Marcus Aurelius

Reply by vichris — 2014-09-23 06:57:34 GMT

Mary is likely my oldest Turtle. She is probably blind in one eye and has limited vision in the other eye. We often have to feed her separately from the other turtles because she has trouble seeing her food. We adopted her a few years back and she has always had a blue paint mark on her back. when we got her she had the mark and was already named. The previous owners found her in southern NM near Alamogordo and she had the blue mark when they found her. She has had that blue mark for at least 15 years that we know of. She was a full sized adult when found.

IMG_1303-001 by vichris08, on Flickr
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Vichris
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"- Marcus Aurelius

Reply by vichris — 2014-09-19 22:25:28 GMT

Sylvia is one of my original females. She may be related to Yeller Head. She has the most striking markings of any of my turtles. Like Yeller Head she is very shy although she has become more accepting of us in the past two years. She is probably the mother of several of my baby turtles.

IMG_1298-001 by vichris08, on Flickr

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Vichris
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"- Marcus Aurelius

Reply by vichris — 2014-09-19 02:38:37 GMT

Here's my other adult male Big bad John, named after the Jimmy Dean song. He is the biggest box turtle I've ever kept. He is somewhat aggressive but by no means the most aggressive male boxie I've kept. I have never observed him being aggressive toward my other male Yeller Head. Big John has a habit of becoming randy right after he's had a good meal. He also has a habit of catching the ladies in the pool and turning it into a hot tub scene

IMG_1305-001 by vichris08, on Flickr

Here's Big John having his way with Wilamena

IMG_0546-001 by vichris08, on Flickr
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Vichris
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"- Marcus Aurelius

Reply by stevep — 2014-07-04 22:12:20 GMT

Looks like a concentric diamond back Terrapin to me.
If found in the wild, probably needs to be on brackish water.

Reply by vichris — 2014-07-04 19:24:47 GMT

>>My sister found this turtle and I am having a hard time identifying it. I am thinking its a box turtle but not really sure any help would be appreciated.
>>

Can you get another pic from a better angle. It looks like a map turtle but hard to tell for sure from that pic,
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Vichris
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"- Marcus Aurelius

Reply by Oldtime — 2014-07-05 00:09:02 GMT

I was alarmed because those caterpillars are like little needle covered hotdogs or something! I would think that would be a very uncomfortable mouthful!

Reply by vichris — 2014-07-04 19:17:09 GMT

>>Oh...he ate a Gypsy Moth Caterpillar. I see that they are NOT the same as Tent Caterpillars as I had originally assumed. Sorry!

They will eat just about any type of bug or insect. I live in the desert SW and mine really like to eat stink bugs....the black hard shelled ones. They'll eat crickets, grasshopper, worms....etc.....They will also eat carrion.
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Vichris
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"- Marcus Aurelius

Reply by oldtime — 2014-06-24 18:18:14 GMT

Oh...he ate a Gypsy Moth Caterpillar. I see that they are NOT the same as Tent Caterpillars as I had originally assumed. Sorry!

Reply by norristhenut — 2014-06-07 02:38:42 GMT

Any chance you cam get a photo of the turtle and damage?
I have several rescues some with damaged shells and one female
with right front foot cut or bit off and still lays eggs.
They are amazing creatures and have an unreal self healing
capability. I wouldn't be afraid to use some fiberglass as a repair choice just have to plan your process.
Alan

Reply by nyctimd — 2014-05-18 22:53:23 GMT

Congrats on a successful hibernation!

All 4 of mine have survived the long cold Northern winter. Worst in a very long time, - more because of the length, than the lower than normal temps. All were dug in deep under frozen turf & peatmoss. I had to break them out, ultimately. Still colder than usual here, but most are eating well, considering the unusual colder climate this year.

td

Reply by boxienuts — 2014-05-16 14:26:05 GMT

It is sad that this forum has become so slow. It was nice when years ago this was THE first central location, before total dilution now that everyone and their grandmother has a forum or facebook or blog or whatever whantabee place to go.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

Reply by vichris — 2014-05-12 05:04:14 GMT

>>Well I thought for sure nothing could survive the winter we had, but after a good thunderstorm today I looked out an was amazed to see one of my eastern females sitting in the sun on top of the compost mound. If one survived maybe more did hopefully.
>>I put a night crawler in front of her and she immediately ate it.
>>-----
>>Jeff Benfer
>>gartersnakemorph.com

Hey glad to hear the good news Jeff. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you that all of your boxies made it. Nice looking setup you have there Jeff.

All nine of my adults and the two juvies that wintered over are now up and eating. I have two babies from last year and only one baby from this year in the house being cared for.

BTW I thought maybe this whole forum completely died off. Glad to see some others posting. I'll try check in here at least once a week and post something too.

.

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Vichris
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"- Marcus Aurelius

Reply by ejhoene — 2014-05-12 00:02:42 GMT

That is awesome news. I have now seen all of mine as of today. I can't believe they all made it through this winter. They are very tough animals.
Good luck with the rest!
Ed

Reply by boxienuts — 2014-05-11 23:01:03 GMT

here are the toad eggs.

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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

Reply by boxienuts — 2014-05-11 23:00:20 GMT

Here are some pics of her and the pen and some toad eggs laid in the last couple days.

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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com