Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone know of a good source for box turtles in Dallas texas area? I have a hansome large male who needs a girlfriend. He has been with us about 2 years and pretty much eats anything. Keep him in a large outdoor enclosure with everything except a companion.

forgot to add a pic. here it is

darn pics not working but he is a really nice box turtle. Lots of red color on front legs and eyes and nice coloration on shell.

just one more try linking pic this time.
Link

It looks like a easter box turtle. IS that the type of turtle you are looking for?
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Jack

Easterns don't have green heads like the ornates and westerns.

Katrina

N/P

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I was told my turtle is an ornate. It is a really large one and very gentile. Eats strawberries right out of our hands. Also likes the insides of bell peppers. Heck, he pretty much likes all fruits and some veggies too.

I'm wanting a female of same species. I'd prefer local but not ruling out ordering one thru mail. Anyone know a good breeder or hobbyist who sells ornates?

There are usually people in texas selling ornate box turtles
on the kingsnake classifies. However, I hate to encourage you to go this route because these people are usually selling wild caught ornates in large quantities. Still, if you could give one a good home and a chance at survival, I'd say go for it.
I would quarantine a new purchase for a few weeks to make sure it isn't carrying anything that could make your beautiful boy sick.

thanks for the info Lisa. Oh and thanks for the compliment on my turtle. Rex is a real champ in our book. One of his favorite things to do is climb on top of his wood hide and "watch the backyard". Very gentile and so interesting to just watch. He was wild caught about 18 months ago on the side of the road. He was about to cross an interstate and we just had to pull over and stop what was sure to be death on that busy road.

We debated whether to release him on the other side of interstate or in another place but my kids really wanted to keep him and so I said we keep him only if health is good and he is eating.

Started eating fruit on day 3 and after a month he was eating fruits veggies, slugs, worms. Now he eats just about anything but is very partial to strawberries. Will come running when we set them in food dish (well running for turtle anyway).

Anyone who is having trouble getting their turtles to eat veggies, I would suggest the insides of green bell peppers. That was the first veggie ours ate. He also likes chopped carrots and snow peas.

He just needs a female ornate for a buddy and maybe baby turtles some day. Our enclosure is large and well stocked with hides, leaves, and such. We even have a sprinkler head adjusted to really fine mist in their enclosure so every third day, they get a shower (haha).

Will keep looking for a girlfriend for Rex! Would love to see pics of everyones elses turtles by the way. :~)

Good luck and keep us posted on your search. If Dallas has
any kind of exotic pet store, you might try there....

You also might try http://www.turtlehomes.org
They place "homeless" turtles that can't be released into the wild. I've heard the application process is kind of stringent, but sounds like you have a great set up and are doing well with your boy, so might be worth a try.

When you say you feed carrots are they raw or cooked? If they're raw are they finely grated? I've just never had any luck with carrots and wanted to be clear on how you were preparing them. Mine like tomatoes, romaine lettuce, blackberries and strawberries as well as corn. Last year I dug up a prickly pear cactus in woods near my house because I had heard that ornates eat that in the wild. In the spring I noticed that a new "bud" had been nibbled off the cactus I planted last summer, so I went out and transplanted another one. Now they are both gone....devoured, stickers and all.
But I'm not sure if the ornates ate any of it or not, the only turtle I was able to catch in the act was a three toed.
I also (when I have time)dig up dandilion greens and transplant them in my pen and they rarely last 24 hours. Sometimes I just clip of the leaves and rince them (so they'll seem a little "crisper" but if your timing is off the leaves will wilt and go uneated. We don't "weed and feed" our yard and the dandilions that don't get pulled in the more visible part of the yard grow pretty big over time. And I've read that dandilion greens are among the most nutrient packed green.

Anyway, keep us posted. I'll try to post picks sometime this summer, or maybe I'll finally do the website I've always wanted to do.

Lisa, Rex likes his carrots sliced. We use the baby carrots and just slice them into small pieces. I will tell you how we got Rex to start eating alot of veggies. We like to juice at our house. We were running lots of fruits and veggies thru the juicer and my wife came up with the idea... Hey alot of this pulp from the juicer is stuff that Rex eats. I wonder if he would eat the pulp. Well, we put a small amount in his food dish and sure enough, He ate it up. We juice with carrots, celery, and all types of fruit. We think Rex started taking carrots better because he ate them in the mix with the more tasty stuff and now eats them fine. The other thought is maybe eating the veggie and fruit mixture improved his overall health to the point that he had more appetite. Either way, he eats great now. In fact he probably eats too much now as he has really put on the weight since we got him.

He also eats sweet potato, snow peas, tomatos (must be sliced just like grapes) and lots of other stuff. Interesting to hear about cactus eating. I wonder if Rex would eat cactus? Might have to try that one as we have no shortage of cactus in Texas!

Would like to see some pics of your turtle. I will be adding more pics of Rex soon. Oh and as for the hunt for a girlfriend, I have something in the works with a cute little ornate female named Jasmine in our area. Won't know if it works out for a couple weeks yet but hoping for the best!

added the pic of our possible girlfriend for Rex. Meet Jasmine. Smaller than Rex to be sure but she sure looks nice!

I just cant get image to work so I will have to just link the page again.
Link

Great! One more question if you don't mind....how do you prepare the sweet potatoes?

Lisa, according to my wife, she feeds sweet potato raw chopped up to mix with other stuff. A good mix is carrots, sweet potato and peaches. Hard for Rex to tell the difference so he eats it all to get the good stuff (peaches).

Matt