Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Sometimes I worry about my box. I'll get paranoid and think that if I didn't help him to his water dish, then he wouldn't get in it at all.

However, I've come home a few times to find him soaking and he did it all by himself. But that didn't happen often.

I just bought him a new "prop". It's a plastic "log" and it is very long and I'm hoping he won't get lost in it. Does this happen? Has anyone ever had a turtle that gets lost in their home, or they don't eat/forage unless you encourage them?

I was feeding him earlier and typically he'll attack the worms I give him when they move at all. This one he practically let escape, so I put it in front of him and then he attacked it.

Am I just being dumb? lol

He is a hatchling after all, but I just get worried sometimes. I've never had a turtle long term before, so I just don't know their characters very well. Someone please tell me everything is ok.

(Hopefully these pics will work)

I think your little guy will be fine. He could get lost in your whole house, but not in his enclosure. They are very attracted to wriggling prey- that is not unusual. I can drop a nightcrawler close to one of my guys with no response, then re-drop it closer, and they instantly attack.

Not smart:

Smart:

(This guy is a rescue who has been treated for pneumonia who isn't going out till spring)

Nanci
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*****
0.0.1 Classic Corn, 0.0.1 Cali King, 0.1 Nelson's Milk
1.0 Tricolor Hog, 0.0.1 Eastern Hog, 1.0 Florida King
1.0 Eastern Box Turtle, 1.0 Florida Box Turtle
0.0.2 Desert Torts, 2.0 Feral Pigeons

LOL

Poor turtle.

Well that's comforting. He doesn't ever get stuck in anything. Well, one time he got stuck in his water dish but that was my fault for choosing one that was too deep and without footing. (I'm the dumb one )

Thank you very much!

Nanci he's so cute!

I can do the same thing, drop food in front of them & they won't eat it.
I chalk this up to them not wanting a human to stand around & watch them eat.
Many times I can put food in front of Chip, he'll see the dog, then he'll leave.
I put the dog out, put Chip in front of the food again then get out of the way where he can't see me then I can peak in & he'll be eating it.
I think being nervous about being watched has something to do with why they don't always eat when we want them to. Then another reason is they decide today I don't want that food item, they want something else because they're being finicky.

Smart, I think they are very smart animals, as long as we take them for what they are & not compare them to other species.
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PHRatz

Both my Florida and my Eastern are shy about me watching them eat, but once they get going, they get less shy.

Krusty _is_ cute. I never intended to keep him permanently- just fix him up and adopt him out, but after his unending stream of irresistably cute behaviors, I couldn't do it.

Nanci
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*****
0.0.1 Classic Corn, 0.0.1 Cali King, 0.1 Nelson's Milk
1.0 Tricolor Hog, 0.0.1 Eastern Hog, 1.0 Florida King
1.0 Eastern Box Turtle, 1.0 Florida Box Turtle
0.0.2 Desert Torts, 2.0 Feral Pigeons

Make sure you remember that these turtles are wild animals. They are not use to being in a cage or around people. They are not like a domesticated animal that needs people for love and comfort like cats and dogs. Baby turtles especially box are very shy, it is their nature and what keeps them alive in the wild. Box turtles are notoriously finicky at all ages, they are unlike many water turtles and wood turtles that will eat like pigs. I have seen my male voracioulsy eat one worm like he was starving only to reject the next one I give him while he walks away completely uninterested. Trying over and over again to get a turtle to eat doesn't always work and sometimes it works against you. Think about it, how hungry you would be if someone picked you up out of bed dropped food in front of you, then told you to eat while they watched you? Normally if a turtle doesn't eat upon your initial feeding attempt they don't want the food. Continually picking the turtle up and placing it in front of the food 90% of the time will not work, and simply stress him further. It is the equivalent of when you are a baby and your mom constantly tries to take the spoonful of food and rub it and shoved it in front of your face, while you are refusing to eat. Try dropping food in the cage versus placing food in front of him, then watch from a distance. I literally throw mealworms and earthworms into my male's cage, if he sees me he gets turtle ADD of some sort and becomes distracted. Also in my cage i have pill bugs and mealworms in there at all times therefore the turtles can forage for them when they want. I have found that for whatever reason certain box turtle instincts to eat, sleep, breed, forage, etc. become more apparent when outside. If you ever take a box turtle that is slumped up inside a cage and place him outside he instantly comes alive. His head perks up and he looks like he got a shot of adrenaline all of a sudden. The other thing that sometimes cues this is if you mist the cage with rain. Rain in the wild brings worms out of the ground and subsequently causes box turtles to become active foragers. The few times I have seen babies in the wild is during morning rainstorms. Maybe try misting the cage and then feeding him. And remember sometimes less is more. Sometimes we try too hard, as long as his environment cues are in order he will eventually eat. Come spring try to get him outside for a few hours and you should see significant improvements. Sorry so long, slow day in the stock market.

My turtles LOVE pillbugs. I even saw one of my desert torts eat one the other day, which was really strange. They are like turtle candy.

Nanci
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*****
0.0.1 Classic Corn, 0.0.1 Cali King, 0.1 Nelson's Milk
1.0 Tricolor Hog, 0.0.1 Eastern Hog, 1.0 Florida King
1.0 Eastern Box Turtle, 1.0 Florida Box Turtle
0.0.2 Desert Torts, 2.0 Feral Pigeons

Thanks for the info.

My turtle eats in front of me sometimes, but I have to be out of his field of vision. Not necessarily hiding, but his attention has to be on the food and not on me. So I can't move or he'll get distracted.

I was thinking about dumping a few worms in his tank and letting them live in there so he could forage, but I'm not sure that he would. I mean.. I'm sure he would because that's an instinct, but I want to make sure he's eating.

Also, I don't want the worms to all die in his tank and possibly make it dirtier or something.

One thing I can do is hide my face and put just my hand in the tank with a wiggly worm and when he's interested I'll drop it and let him have at it.

Another thing I've noticed is that he's less nervous around me than my boyfriend. If I walk to his tank and see him I'll stop and say hi, and coo at him a little bit and he stares at me like I'm an idiot, but he doesn't go into his shell. If my boyfriend even walks by the tank, he'll hide. It makes me happy

The problem with leaving worms in the tank is that they may crawl out at night, hence the name night crawlers. If you place a piece of flat rock in the cage and gather some pill bugs from outside they will breed in the cage. Simply lift the rock and your boxie should be drawn to the movement of the pill bugs trying to look for cover. Also come spring I place a couple bails of hay out on the grass. Give it a couple weeks and when you lift the hay there should be a abundance of insects. When you lift the hay place your boxie there and you will see a turtle go into a feeding frenzy. I have found that hatchlings especially like this. As far as him responding to you, I have found that turtles like women's voices better. My female goes nuts and walks over to my mom(when I was living at home) when she sees her. Most be something with the tone of voice.

"The problem with leaving worms in the tank is that they may crawl out at night, hence the name night crawlers."

The problem with leaving live nightcrawlers in the tub isn't that they'll live and crawl out, it's that they'll die from the heat. Other worms may dry out, if they manage to hide from the turtle long enough.

Pill bugs are great, until your turtles decide they no longer like them. Mine refused to eat them after 2 months. I would get this terribly accusing look that seemed to say "I know you're holding out on me. Where are the other insects?", of course this was after I had went to the trouble to establish a nice little colony of pill and sow bugs.

"Baby turtles especially box are very shy, it is their nature and what keeps them alive in the wild. Box turtles are notoriously finicky at all ages, they are unlike many water turtles and wood turtles that will eat like pigs."

I guess mine weren't told this.

None of the turtles care if I watch them eat any insects, infact they're happy to just sit there and be hand fed. This has caused them to somewhat associate hands with food and try to nip fingers. They do not like me watching them eat veggies, no idea why this is but if they see me they'll stop and stare at me. Aside from the few months they went off veggies all together (seasonal thing maybe?), they'll try anything I put in their food dish, the only thing that was completely refused was mustard greens. Other veggies are usually gobbled up in a turtle feeding frenzy.

Really it's isn't how smart they are, afterall they have human slaves at their beck and call.

>>Really it's isn't how smart they are, afterall they have human slaves at their beck and call.

Now that's a profound statement!!
They DO have humans at their beck & call.. how could they be any smarter?
LOL
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PHRatz

Something that has made me feel a lot more comfortable with all my different reptiles is having a gram scale so I could track their weight. It really is invaluable. You can't judge growth by size. There's this saying for keeping snakes, "Your hand is not a thermometer," but really, your hand is not a scale either.

I'm using this software, the trial version, to track all my herps activities. http://www.eyehit.com/degei/

I used to use http://www.thegeckocam.com/ Herp Care Software which is a much simpler program, but I lost my data a couple times and switched to Degei, which archives.

Another thing my turts really love are those huge black disgusting roaches, especially if you squish it but don't kill it, so it is still live and kicking. And slugs. My Eastern really, really loves slugs.

Nanci
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*****
0.0.1 Classic Corn, 0.0.1 Cali King, 0.1 Nelson's Milk
1.0 Tricolor Hog, 0.0.1 Eastern Hog, 1.0 Florida King
1.0 Eastern Box Turtle, 1.0 Florida Box Turtle
0.0.2 Desert Torts, 2.0 Feral Pigeons

>>Another thing my turts really love are those huge black disgusting roaches, especially if you squish it but don't kill it, so it is still live and kicking. And slugs. My Eastern really, really loves slugs.

I raise two species of roaches for turtle food.
You know of all the foods I feed to them the ones that disgust ME the most are the nightcrawlers.
I am not a fan of slime.. ewwww

Gram scales.. this really ticked me off. I searched high & low for a good priced digital gram scale. Could NOT find one anywhere in a store but finally 8 years or so ago? I found one in a catalog called the bird-a-log.. it was sold for parrots. Good price I think around 50 bucks. Got it was thrilled with it, still am, it's still in good shape but what made me sooo mad was a year or so after I bought this thing every store I walked into suddenly had digital gram scales for less than 50.
Even Walmart ended up with one, grrrrr.
Another thing.. my DH told me that he used to have a really nice one the expensive metal kind that is not electronic with weights- the kind that lasts forever.. he can't remember where he got it or what happened to it or even WHY he had it.
Too bad he lost that thing!
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PHRatz

http://www.salteronline.com/kitchen/623951/

It was $39, but I love it so much, and won't ever have to buy another one. It's super simple to use.

Nanci
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*****
0.0.1 Classic Corn, 0.0.1 Cali King, 0.1 Nelson's Milk
1.0 Tricolor Hog, 0.0.1 Eastern Hog, 1.0 Florida King
1.0 Eastern Box Turtle, 1.0 Florida Box Turtle
0.0.2 Desert Torts, 2.0 Feral Pigeons

I have two: one is a digital kitchen scale from Walmart which works fine for adults, but the weight in grams is rounded to the nearest EVEN number. I'm on my second one...the first one got wet and was ever the same again.
The other one I have is a much more sensitive scale made by Ohaus (accurate to 1/100g but only goes up to 200g. I use that one for the hatchlings. Don't know how much they cost these days.

UGH roaches! My boyfriend would have to handle that one.

When I go to the pet store to buy crickets, I always have to pass it up. I stand there and stare down into that box trying to will myself to put my hand in with all the jumpy insects.

I can't do it. LOL

If it jumps, flies, or runs really fast, I'm going in the opposite direction.

>>If it jumps, flies, or runs really fast, I'm going in the opposite direction.

Ha ha ha!! I know what you mean I used to be the same way.
I used plastic spoons to feed meal worms, plastic laundry scoop to feed out crickets I've used crickets for so long now that if one gets away from me I'm on it & catching it because I don't want it molting then waking me up at 3 AM later on LOL!

What changed me more than I ever thought I could change was adopting a homeless rat in 1995 from the college. I just felt so sorry for him even though I was repulsed by him.. at first.
I fell in love with him, then I got more, then I started to realize that hey if my rats are not disgusting why would anything else be?
The only one thing I still find gross is the slime of a worm or slug. I do use hemostats to nightcrawlers but I use my bare fingers when I dig little worms out of the ground for the boxies to eat fresh.
Maybe I'll get over the worm thing one day too?
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PHRatz