Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,
I'm thinking about getting an eastern box turtle. I'm having trouble locating any decent captive care sites. Does anyone have any advice on box turtle care? How big does the enclosure have to be? And what sort of bedding should be used? I've heard they can be housetrained and allowed to free roam, is this true? And if so, how would they be with small children and house hold pets? Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Sarah

Box turtles can't really be housed trained. Plus housing box turtles indoors is not a good idea. Box turtles should always be housed outdoors in outdoor pens unless they are ill or sick. A box turtle that lives outdoors can outlive a human, but a box turtle that is housed indoors has an average life span of just 2 years. plus box turtles are very easily stressed out to the point of making them selves very ill.

Do a search on the web for box turtle care, you will come across some good sites.

Thanks for the advice, it was very helpful.
Thanks,
Sarah

www.aileo.com (my personal domain) check under my menu (nathan) for my turtle site and my albums.

Outdoors only. This should be your first rule in considering any of the north american box turtles. No turtle is housetrainable. Some might accidently end up pooping in "safe" spots most often, but don't count on it.

Outdoors with a nice sized pen, box turtles are easy to care for and quite fun. Hatchlings should be kept indoors their first year, but outdoors after that.

Please take the time to read through this forum for as long as you can stand it. There are some GREAT folks here that have been keeping boxies a long time (myself with 20 years) and there is a lot of good information.

I have 2 box turles and i keep them out side all year. This winer it was very cold and they hipernated underground for almost 7 months! Now they are eating all the worms, sulgs and other buggs i can find for them. They also love cantalope which they eat skin along with the meatey part. They are nice pets but the are only there for the warm mounts of the year.
I used to have a stinpot turtle whick is the smallest turtle. I keep it inside in a 10 gal aquarium for 7 years and he did fine. this type of turtle does not get out of the water to bask so it is very easy to keep. He would eat the floating turle food and all the gold fish that we put in the tank with him. It was fun to watch him chase the fish ( which he would always catch eventually) As my kids got older we ran out of room to keep the fish tank so i let him go back to the same lake we caught him in when i was with my kids fishing. I see a lot of this type of turtle for sale in the king snake turtle classifieds for like 10 to 15$ ( mud turtles are very similar) there are lots of there turtles around in lakes here. But box turtles are getting hard to find because of loss of habatat, thats why they cost so much more.
I have also seen people keeping the red eared sliders in outside ponds that peopel seem to be makeing in there front yard around here. But i dont know what they do with them in the winter.
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Jack

The proper name of the stinkpot turtles is Musk turtles. They are the smallest turtle 3-4 inches long. And they are the one turtle that is easy to keep inside.
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Jack

Thanks to everyone who answered this post. The info was extremly helpful. I have some more questions. How do you sex boxies? And is eastern NC too cold for an outdoor box turtle in the winter? Where do you get one? And how old does it have to be?
Thanks,
Sarah

Box turtles can live just about anywhere in the lower 48 states if your build them a good pen. A pen should have lots of shade for those hot summer months, and the soil should be deep enough that they can burrow into the ground (sometimes up to 2') to escape the winter's cold). I have 11 boxies that live outdoors year round. In the winter they burrow underground and when the weather is right they come back to the surface to live for the duration of summer.

The best place to aquire a box turtle is by adopting one through turtlehomes.org or coloradoreptilerescue.org or any other adoption facility. By adopting a box turtle that needs a home your not helping in the destroying of there wild numbers which are in a terrible decline due to cars, and the pet trade.

You can adopt a box turtle no matter what its age is.

Before building a pen you need to think a few things through. Do you have preditors such as dogs, coons, oppossoms, or cats that could injure a turtle. If so you will probley need to place a net or something over the pen to keep them out. How many turtles do you want? The more turtles you have the bigger the pen should be, specially if your going to house multiple males together. Also remember turtles can escape anything if not built turtle proof. Make sure the walls to your pen go underground at least 1', and I would go even deeper then that.

I live in central NC. Our entire state is inside the natural range of eastern box turtles and is suitable for outdoor living. The other reply to this message has good info. I would add that you want to be sure that there is good drainage out of the pen so it does not become a waterhole, especially in winter when they could drown.

I let mine hibernate outdoors and I just pile up a big mound of hardwood mulch in their pen, they do the rest.

My hatchlings are kept indoors one year, then released to the outdoor pen where they will live until large enough to handle living with the adults.