Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I started at about 8:30 this morning cleaning everyones pens. I weedeated around the sulcata pen and raked it out, the redfoot pen was really, really overgrown with different kinds of creeping plants I've got in there, so I cut that back. The box turtle pen was actually okay, so I didn't do anything in there. The Russian tortoise pen was in need of some weedeating and some new sand and topsoil, so that was taken care of. I had to put everyone in the Russian pen for about 2 hours while I cleaned the pens out, and I just noticed that I have quite a herd of turtles/tortoises.

Dude, it is so not cool to mix your species like that. You're asking for trouble. If your Russians are wild-caught, they could be carries of a chelonian herpes virus that could affect the box turtles and redfoots. The box turtles could be carriers of a rana virus. Not to mention the intestinal parasites you can't see, and viruses we might not even be aware of yet.

Katrina

I only kept them in there for about two hours. I have a friend who has bred Redfoots since 1980, and he's got Redfoots, Sulcatas, and Russians living together in his backyard here in Florida. His biggest male sulcata probably weighs in at 80 pounds, and has never harmed the smaller species, and I've seen them for myself. I haven't mixed anything in a couple months, since I put together the redfoot pen, but while I mixed species, I never had a problem.

I did the same thing to my turtle pens-and the day was HOT! I turned over the soil in the night time pens. Added fresh leaf litter and uncover the flat rocks that got buried by digging feet Hubby weedwacked the daytime pens and I arranged new playthings in the pens for the turtles to investigate.

In fact I made a YouTube video of the pen and one of my three-toeds eating waxworms from my hand. Check it out at "boxturtlefriend", lol! Tess