I came down to Texas in '89 from New Jersey. Although I have no turtles now, I have kept Texas indegenious species in the past such as softshells, maps, paints and a beautiful alligator snapper in large aquiriums in my living room.

This spring, I hope to get back into them, but I want to create some major ponds in the back yard similiar to some of the outrageous settings I have seen when folks post images on this forum of their turtle habitates. The local critters I catch and buy will not have a problem with Texas weather.

My question is this: will spotted turtles and eastern paints do O.K. in Texas? Outside. When I was little, back in the 50's, my friends and I would hunt snakes, frogs, newts, and turtles in absolutely prestine ponds and woodlands in Franklin Lakes, Mahwah (Camp Yaw Paw and Glen Grey, up at the pipeline, alone 202 and SkyLine Drive), Glen Rock, Ridgewood and Hawthorne. The older brothers of my friends, who had driver lic. would go down to the Pine Barrens and hunt and visit Mrs. Pittman. They were to cool to take us so I never made it to the Jersey Pine Barrens to hunt. We had to hitchhike to get to our spots. I remember one time in 6th or 7th grade (1960?) we were hiching back to Glen Rock from Camp Yaw Paw, down 202 and 208 with a North Copperhead, many DeKay's, a black Racer, a milk snake and 17 painted turtles. But we never found any timber Rattlers in the Ramapo mountains. On several occassions we found evidence of them from shedded skins, but not the snakes.

I would really like to include spotted and e. paints in my collection, but I need some input from people on this forum regarding the viablity of doing it. All of you know more about turtles than I do, and some of you are pros. Will Northeastern turtles handle this weather? Outside. What are your opinons?

I'll be on this forum almost every night watching for help.

Thanks
Blain

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