Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi All,

I have kept turtles, water and box for years now and my wife and I have bought our first home which means I get to start planning on building a turtle pen outside. We have a nice back yard but I do not think we have room for multiple turtle enclosures.

Is there a safe way to incorporate a small pond for my spotted turtles in my eastern box turtle enclosure?

I am concerned about my EBT getting caught in the pond and not being able to get out. Is this a concern? I have never had water deeper then a few inches in my box turtle enclosures.

Any suggestions would be great. The pen will be good size - likely 10x15 or so.

Thanks!

I would not worry about the eastern box turtle in your pond. If they can climb into the pond they will climb out. I see my turtles floating in their pond all the time. The one thing is eastern box turtles like to use there pond as a toilet and every day or so I take a broom and sweep the water out and put in clean water in for them.
-----
Jack

Well if I was goin to do the pond, it would have a decent filtration setup on it so the toilet issue should not be a concern.

I would likely do the pond in the 3' deep ballpark though so that the spotteds have plenty of room and it will not quite get as warm (the water) in the summer. The sides of the pond would be gradual though incase an eastern wandered into the pond.

I would still have a couple shallow dishes in the pen as well for the easterns so that maybe they would be prone to not even going into the pond.

Here is a pic of part of my outdoor turtle enclosure. It houses 2 EBT and a redbelly cooter. The EB also have a shallow soaking dish. They fall/climb into the pond once, and then figure out not to go in that one! I have an island for the cooter to bask, and the boxies can hang on to it until I find them and pull them out. The don't seem to be able to climb out on their own. But if you have gradual sloping sides, as suggested, they should be able to get out on their own.

Good luck and have fun! I really enjoy sitting in my enclosure and watching the turtles do their thing!

-----
0.1.0 ornate box turtle
2.1.0 eastern box turtles
1.0.0 Yellow belly slider
0.1.0 Red belly cooter
0.1.0 Australian shepard
1.9.0 chickens
1.0.0 Dutch rabbit
3.2.0 adult children
1.0.0 husband AND
0.1.0 grandbaby!!

In Florida, I had a rock-themed pond in my box turtle pen, and they loved it. But mine was only about 5 inches deep. I put a mud turtle in there to see how he would do, and he did fine. The Florida box turtle would soak in there for hours. I had times when the dogs would wake me up at 3:00 am to go outside, and the Florida would still be in there. I really want to set up my pond, but I could only fit so much out of 2 households in the 24 foot U-Haul truck. Of course I couldn't fit my two 10 by 10 dog kennels, or the pond in there, so they got left behind at a friend's house.

Do you guys feel if I made the pen/enclosure large enough I could pull off a multi-species enclosure to include blandings and wood turtles in addition to the eastern box turtles and the spotted turtles?

The spotteds and easterns are the highest priority but the north american wood turtles and blandings turtles have always interested me.

If this is doable - biggest concern is if aggression would be an issue, either terrestrial between the woods/easterns/blandings or aquatic with the woods/blandings/spotteds.

Any rough suggestions on pen size needed to do this?

Rough thoughts are pairs of the woods and blandings. The easterns and spotteds would be a few more 3-6 of each (1.3 or 2.4 groups likely).

Overall pen size in the 25x20 with 1/2 being the pond.

hey golfdiva.... did you get my email message shuttled through this forum? If you're like me you changed your actual email to something differet what KS "thinks" it is.

BTW, Congrats on the grandchild! I haven't been around for a while.

Bill

If you are careful to design the pond so that it has gradually sloping sides that will make it easy for a box turtle to enter and exit the water, you should be fine.

Hey Yonkerss,
I am in the process of doing the same thing you are talking about, the difference being that I already have a small garden pond that I built 4 years ago, and now I am going to just build a wooden wall 16ft x 12 ft around the pond area, to house eastern box turtles and a pair of mud turtles and a pair of diamondback terrapins. My pond was built with wildlife in mind first and goldfish second so on one end it slowly gets shallow and widens and has gravel on it. I will be adding a sand area and a deep mulch area. This is a pic of the pond last Sept when the pond plants were overgrown so it looks smaller than it is, the deep end is about 2 feet deep though. I will still keep the wooden pen in the background, just in case I have some little ones, they can spend their first few years in there with complete safety without worry of preditors, just as my adults that are all grown up now did, but they now need more open space to roam and do their thing.

-----
Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

I had a huge enclosure with a 15 x 10 ft x 3 foot deep pond with koi.The pond had mostly sloping areas with one area that was difficult to climb out. We had 4 red eared sliders and a group of eastern boxies ranging from adult size down to yearlings living out there. For years never lost any boxies to drowning, then in one year, one of the adults was found drowned. I assumed it was an isolated event until the following year 2 more were found together drowned. I now only have a shallow pond for the boxies to bath. Shallow enough so they can reach bottom.
Point is make sure it is very easy for them to climb out.

Phil