Reptile & Amphibian Forums

With all the talk of the problems with the ornates, I wanted to ask what the differences were in keeping the different species of box turtles in captivity are. I keep a group of three toed box turtles in the Houston area, but hope to one day have a breeding group of all the species (easter, ornate, desert, gulf coast, florida, 3 toed).

From talking with other keepers, from this site, and from reading relevant literature, it seems that WHERE the turtles are being kept is almost more important than HOW. I think that this is the biggest challenge when keeping all of the different species/subspecies.

I keep all of the native North American subspecies of box turtles. I live in a warm and humid climate. I have never had any real problems with Easterns, Gulf Coasts, Floridas, or Three-toes (with the exception of some fungal shell infections in the Three-toes initially). This is most certainly due to the fact that I am keeping them within their preferred climate.

Contrastingly, I have had TONS of problems with ornates until I learned some aspects essential to their care. I had to try to manipulate the environment to more closely mimic their native habitat. Deserts, on the other hand, have hardly presented any problems. I did start much later with this subspecies, though, and I had already gone through the wringer with ornates and learned a few lessons. I chalk my success with deserts up to experience with the ornates.

Obviously, captive bred animals seem much more able to adapt to different climates. You'll save yourself a lot of headaches if you start with cb animals.

I know that it can be done, but I strongly recommend against keeping different species/subspecies together.

Some general observations; Floridas like it VERY wet and humid and prefer protein over all else, Three-toes need to have the ability to dry out and will consume more vegetable matter than most, Gulf Coasts need to be kept in groups with a very high female ratio and appreciate a large and deep water feature, Easterns can be picky eaters and are more timid especially around the other subspecies, Ornates prefer live prey and seem to need morning sun and as much air movement as possible, Deserts will often not dig beneath leaves and other debris and seem to rely on burrows for shelter, Ornates will often not eat vegetation while Deserts will eat just about anything. The Eastern box turtle subspecies all seem to lay eggs in a very predictable manner...ornates and deserts nest very quickly and do so at different times.

I am sure that many have different experiences. In general, if you stick with the type(s) that occur within your climate or one similar, I think you will find that they pose few challenges.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

That's great stuff Ken. Great info. I really like your promoting CBB and the statements about keeping what will do best in "your" area, it reminds me of when I used to breed fish, and people, myself included at some point, who would try to keep fish that were native to soft water when they had hard water coming out of their tap, or vise versa, it would a constant battle and constant problems with the fish. I had very hard water, so I decided to only kept and breed fish native to very hard water, it just made it easy, less stress, and more successful, and hence more rewarding and fun.
-----
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've made every mistake you can make with my three-toe, but I've found that she does best with higher humidity and will not eat vegetable matter if she can get meat every day (I vary her diet enough to make sure it's balanced). It's interesting how region probably affects how we think of these terms though--Chicago is so dry in winter that "higher humidity" is highly relative I suspect.

You are right, it is relative. When referring to higher humidity, though, I was contrasting between the other types of box turtles. Not necessarily higher than a given location, but higher than ornata.

I think that is what you meant...just wanted to clarify.

Thanks for the reply.

I know what you mean. I had always dreamt of raising honey gourami and discus, but our water here is way too hard also.

I love discus and tried a group once, even bought an expensive RO unit but it was an uphill battle, constantly changing the filter and still having problems, but had great success breeding cichlids, don't breed anymore but I keep some fish in my 75 gal with my diamondback terrapin, he chases them around sometimes and once in a great while "tries" to bite but most of the time he's to well fed to really try to catch fish, besides some of the fish are as big as he is, I built a place from to crawl out and bask under a UV basking bulb, but he doesn't do that much, I think he basks mainly during the day when we aren't home, I know this because I catch him once in a while on the weekends at mid-day It makes a great desplay tank in the family room, his name is PT for People Turtle, my wife came up with that because she said he is a people turtle because he likes people, he constantly begs for attention(food) just like a puppy.
-----
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 have had my ornate for . . . 6 years? I live in an area where it is cold most of the year, so he lives indoors most of the year. I actually find keeping him more humid (50% ambient with a shelter of 80% ) to be better than keeping him at what the room is (30% humidity in winter). I mist him almost daily in the winter. I have no problems getting my guy to eat veggies, although he would prefer to get bugs daily. Warm side is usually 88*f, cool side room temp (around 70-75*f) all heating and lights turn off at night. I think the only problems I had was when I first got him, his beak was way overgrown (and it is slightly deformed) and his nails were very overgrown and curled around and he had worms. The only other time I had a problem with him is when I was away for 2 weeks and my dad turned the heat off to my room (this was when I still lived at home, a few years ago), even with heat lamps it got to cold and he got a URI, baytril cleared it up. Overall I have found him to be pretty hardy and easy going.

>>With all the talk of the problems with the ornates, I wanted to ask what the differences were in keeping the different species of box turtles in captivity are. I keep a group of three toed box turtles in the Houston area, but hope to one day have a breeding group of all the species (easter, ornate, desert, gulf coast, florida, 3 toed).
-----
aquariphiles.com-where I blog about aquarium stuff