Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Last summer I acquired a small breeding group of Ornates, all of which were long term captives of at least a year before I received them from what Ive been told. It started out as a 4:12 breeding group, I lost one female to an upper respiratory infection and one male because he just stopped eating. Both had been to the vet, both had been on antibiotics, they were kept warm, soaked, etc, etc, etc. The female got better a few times but kept relapsing and never fully recovered, eventually she died. The male was probably the most outgoing turtle of the whole group than one day he just stopped eating, I tried everything I and the vet could think of with him and we could never get him to eat after he stopped (you may of seen my earlier thread on him), after about 2 months he died as well. So now my group is 3:11 Ornates and one female three-toe I acquired about 4 months ago who is doing great, Ive never had and problems with her.

So, to get to the point of this thread. It seems like with the Ornates its consistently one problem after another. At any given time I'll have at least 3-4 of them with runny noses or discharge from their eyes. The vet has given them antibiotics on a few different occasions and they do get well but it seems like for every one that gets well another gets sick. I am in south Texas(Houston Area) and they live in a large outdoor enclosure with plenty of sun, shade, places to hide,clean water to soak in, they are regularly supplemented with vitamins and calcium. I have done alot of research and tried to take care of them by the book but it seems like the group as a whole just keeps getting worse little by little.

For instance, right now I have 8 of them inside soaking and staying warm because they have runny noses/wheezing. Its about 65 degrees out right now, daytime temps have been 50-70 degrees lately and we have had a few nights in the 40's but nothing close to freezing so none of them are hibernating at the moment. As of the last 2-3 weeks only 3 out of the whole group will eat. The rest pretty much sleep all day out in the open. They will sun themselves if its nice out but they just act like their internal clocks are all screwed up because its so warm down here. They started acting like this around the time the Ornates farther north started to hibernate.

I really don't know what to do with these guys, its getting to the point that I'm starting to consider getting rid of them because of all problems. I live at the most southern part of their range but maybe they would do better in a different environment. Any advice, comments, questions, thoughts?

On a seperate note, I also have 6 sulcatas, sized from 6" to 18" and they are doing great in their outdoor pen

Maybe this is a silly question... but are you keeping the sick turtles in with the healthy ones? Possibly leading to them reinfecting each other?

I certainly know how you feel. Most of my ornates came from people here in the Carolinas. People from Texas sold them at the Columbia, SC show in large numbers during the early 2000's. People from this region bought them and kept them like Easterns. I operated a small rehabilitation operation out of the Vet. I was working for, and most of my ornates were surrenders. Now that the background is over...

I found that Baytril did not work well. Now, I am no Vet., and I would never want to try to play Doctor on this forum. However, I had much greater success after an antibiotic was recommended to me by a herp specialist...the common name is Fortaz. Many Veterinarians just give Baytril, Baytril, and yes, more Baytril. Sometimes, you just have to switch it up!

Another thing that has become very important for me is the location of the turtle pen. Where I am keeping this species, they MUST have full morning sun. The overall substrate of the pen must be very well drained and dry the majority of the time. Only relatively small humid micriclimates should be provided for them to take shelter within. While they are out and about, they should be dry and have exposure to sun. Another very important thing is airflow. They must have nearly constant air exchange. I had to knock down trees in order to accomplish this, and I moved the pen to a corridor in my yard that receives wind from a cleared thoroughfare behind my property. Also, I have constructed my pen from hardware cloth on a frame despite its less than ideal qualities.

If keeping this species outside of its normal habitat, whether outside of their geographic range or in a more forested area, it is sometimes easier to keep them in large indoor pens. I know that this goes against the conventional wisdom, but they really seem to thrive at ambient room humidity...about 50-75 percent in the typical home. Of course, they still need a soaking area and a humid hide.

Ok, long post but I have one more tip. This may be due to the fact that this species eats large quantities of herbivorous insects in the wild, but they seem to have much higher Vitamin A and calcium requirements than other box turtle species. The earth and plants in their typical habitat are chock full of calcium. The dirt contains large amounts of limestone, which contains large amounts of calcium. The plants incorporate this element, and the insects consuming them get gut loaded with it. Many grasses and plants are also high in Vitamin A naturally, and this gets gut loaded into the insects (primarily grasshoppers) that make up a large portion of the turtles' diets. Having said all of that, I really came upon this by experimentation. My results have convinced me more than anything. That was just an attempt to try to determine why it has been the case for me. I dust insects with calcium and/or complete vitamin powder once weekly with ornates. Also, I coat insects with cod liver oil (available in liquid encapsulated form in any vitamin section) once weekly for Vitamin A. Be careful, Vitamin A can be toxic in large quantities.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

Great explanation, The more I made our ornate area like the easterns pen the more respitory illness I got. I now have one inside and another coming in today. We are taking out all the leaves and large leaf filled chambers out and going to a longer burrow chamber with very little leaf and mulch inside. I built one after a tip from Tess and one took to it like it was finally home. We also learned fescue grass clipping are bad when they stay damp. I think it has something to do with the mold spores.
OFF TO REMOVE FIVE TRUCK LOADS OF LEAVES ! ! !

No, I do not keep the sick ones with the well ones, the sick ones are inside. But from what Ive read the respiratory infections/irritations aren't contagious anyway.

My vet was using Amiglyde though, it seemed to clear them up pretty quickly but as after being back outside for a few weeks they would just get sick again. It does sound like their enclosure is an issue though. It gets partial morning sun, theres no way I can have it in full morning sun and the whole area that my box turtles and sulcatas are in is surrounded be a 8' wood fence on one side and the house on the other, so I'm guessing the air flow isn't that great. It also gets pretty damp with the humidity down here so thats probably an issue as well, maybe I'll just move the whole group inside, lol. It seems like that might be better for them.

BTW, if anyone reading this successfully keeps Ornates and is interested in taking these guys off my hands and adding them to your groups just let me know. I paid too much for them a few months ago to let them go for free but I am willing to work out a good deal. I am really attached to them and I do want to keep them but the more I think about it the more it seems like it would be in their best interest to let them go to someone that has a nice enclosure in an environment that they could thrive in. Ive been trying to come up with a solution but theres really no way I can safely move their pen somewhere that would suite their particular species without putting them in danger. Just email me at damesta@earthlink.net if your interested.

Perhaps your keeping box turtles with Sulcata's is the problem, what might be normal flora for the Sulcatas is infectious bacteria to the BT's.
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1.0 pastel ball python
0.1 mojave ball python
0.1 normal ball python
0.2 3-toed box turtles
2.3 eastern box turtles
0.0.5 3-striped mud turtle
1.0 northern diamondback terrapin
2.1 tiger salamander
1.1 red-sided garter
1.0 anerythristic red-sided garter
1.1 Iowa snow plains garter
1.1 Het butter stripe cornsnake
0.1 anerythristic motley cornsnake
1.1 Blue garter (Puget Sound)

I don't keep them with sulcatas, they have their own separate enclosure. I do keep them both in one fenced in section of my yard but they are always separated into different enclosures.

It took me a while of having the same trouble your having with your Ornate box turtles. Your set-up sounds just fine to me. My problem, and your's to, is that they are all together. Once I seperated them into groups of no more than 3 to a pen, I haven't had any problems. I try for 1 male to 2 females. Ornates will stress out if they are in constant contact with other Ornate box turtles. Stress is what is making them keep getting sick as their immune systems are being compromised by it.
When you bring them in to be treated or just to make sure they are doing well. I have found the best way is to keep them seperate inside. They will do so much better and seem like different animals when you do this. All my animals are doing so much better now that I have done this. It was getting hard to be constantly treating ear infections and RIs. I was constantly having animals up that weren't hibernating. All mine are hibernating this year, except for one female who is up for the winter as she wasn't doing well this summer. She's doing great now though.
Give this a try and I'm sure you'll have all your animals sorted out in no time.

Dan

Really? Ive never heard that about Ornates before, theres no aggression or anything and they don't seemed stressed by each other. They are always together sleeping on top of each other, etc, etc.

I wasn't seeing any aggression with my Ornates, they were just sick all the time. It's just the fact of seeing each other that does it. In the wild box turtles rarely come across each other and when they do it's just for a short period of time.
If you think about it Ornates are very seldom bred in captivity and the ones that do best are people that have single animals.

Dan