Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well Tess,
I took your advise and added some rocks and driftwood.I put the rock around the water dishes, I think this will help keep the water cleaner, kind of like having a floor mat at the front door, they will be wiping thier feet so to speak when the cross the rocks and not track in so much dirt. Also I put hollowed out logs partially covering the food dishes, they seem to be more comfortable eating now rather than out in the open, also the food will stay fresher though out the day under the shade of the log and sheltered from the rain. Also I planted a bunch of collard greens and mesculin mix, which you can see are coming up nicely, I might plant a few hostas too. They are really moving around and eating well today, because today it rained this morning, and it's overcast and the first day this year around 80 degrees here.
1st pic is the 3-toed's pen, 2nd pic is the Eastern's pen.
Thanks for sharing,
Jeff Benfer

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You'll get your regius's to the wall, man!
1.0 pastel Python regius
0.1 mojave Python regius
0.1 normal Python regius
0.2 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.1 Ambystoma tigrinum
0.2 Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.1 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
1.1 heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus

Here is a picture of my turtle pen. It might be a little to big as I sometimes have problems finding all the turtls ( 5 ).

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Jack

Very nice pen, Jack. I have my babies in just a 8'x5' and have enough problems finding all of them... I'll wait till they're larger to upgrade. lol

With all that room you should plant some vegetables in there. Squash provides nice cover and if the turtles leave it alone you can have the squash for yourself. Same with any sort of greens, green beans are easy to grow too.

Yea that would be nice to have a garden in the pen. My only problem is its mostly shade. My back yard is mostly large oak trees. I do have dandelions and wild strawberries in the pen. In one corner I also have a worm bed were there is lots of worms for the turtles to hunt down on there own.

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Jack

Jack,
Very nice pen, I would love to have an open more natural spacious pen like that, but my turtles wouldn't probably last one night with all the predators that visit my backyard, also I need to be able to locate them in the fall because they wouldn't likely survive our winters, so the wooden box pens are the best I can do for now, but it still beats an aquarium indoors by a long ways. Thanks for sharing
Jeff
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You'll get your regius's to the wall, man!
1.0 pastel Python regius
0.1 mojave Python regius
0.1 normal Python regius
0.2 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.1 Ambystoma tigrinum
0.2 Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.1 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
1.1 heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus

Nay, bigger the better, I say My turtles also have a big pen but they each have their favorite spots (though the spots will change over time) and I can usually find the turtles in the same forms every evening. I put my turtles into predator proof nighttime pens in the evenings. I can't trust the raccoons around here! They eat any baby birds they can get the paws on, too! Coyote urine doesn't seem to help-maybe I need to get mountain lion urine....
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Tess Cook
Box Turtle Care and Conservation Website
www.boxturtlesite.info