Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, I recently purchased a box turtle and am looking for any advise anyone has to offer. I live in South East Louisiana and right now I have my turtle in a VERY large blue colored rubbermaid container on my screened in porch. It is facing the East, I have a mulch type chip in there that I can't remember the name of right now but, I purchased it at the pet store at the same time I purchased the turtle. I have a circle container about a foot acroos and about 1 to 2 inches deep of water for the turtle to get into. I have a carboard box for him to hide under and a small food dish for him to eat out of. Right now he has plenty of room to move around. I was just wondering what I should do with him (I think it's a him) when the weather get's colder? My husband was going to build him an encloser outside but I think I'm going to worry about him too much because of red ants, rain, our dogs and cats, etc. Any adivse anyone has to make my turtle live a long and happy life would be appreciated.

Can you tell us what kind of box turtle it is, and, is it a baby or an adult?
I'm inclined to tell you to let you're husband go ahead and build an outdoor pen for it: he can make a lid for it too, and there are lots of good pen designs that you can check out on the Web. Make it as big as you can, because turtles need room to roam.
Turtles love the rain, dogs and cats can be kept away from them with a good pen, and ants can probably be dealt with too. My cats can get into my turtle pen but they find them kindof boring: the turtles don't move fast enough to be interesting.
As far as overwintering it goes, they hibernate in the wild and the climate where you are is not so harsh that this would be as much of a worry as for someone farther north.
Regards
Stephanie

I just found out my box turtle is a she and she is an Eastern box turtle. I don't even know how old she is that's one thing I forgot to ask the man I bought her from. I will have to call him and ask her age.

What I was trying to find out was whether it was a hatchling or not: if its big enough for you to know that its a female, then its big enough to benefit from a pen larger than the largest rubbermaid you can get.
Because adult turtles have a large home turf in the wild, you should try to provide as big a pen for your pet as you possibly can, with a variety of places to hide, etc.; shady spots, sunny spots, a 'pond', logs to hide under, leaf piles, and so forth. It doesn't need to take up your whole backyard.
Most of the turtle keepers I'm aquainted with end up expanding their pens eventually: ours will grow this year, too.
Even a CB turtle deserves as much room as you can give it.
Stephanie

Thanks for the advise. I will start designing her outside pen. I'm still a little nervous about the red ants around here, they can be pretty aggressive. I've seen them clean a lizard (not a pet) that was in my back yard down to bone in less than an hour.

There have been other posters on this forum who live in the 'deep south' & keep their turtles outdoors. Try posting a question about ant control.
Good luck
Stephanie

HI congrats on your new turtle. Sounds like you have a pretty good set up with the tub. depending on how big the tub is you might be able to raise a happy turtle without building anything new. I keep two turtles in a pen which is 3' by 6' and they are very happy. In the wild turtles do roam, but they don't seem to leave the area of about a football feild in their whole lifes (acording to some studies). the way i gauge whether or not a pen is big enough is by the way the turtle reacts. if they just sit there like a rock its too small if they are active then its fine. if you do build a pen you should have a lid that way you wont have to worry about preditors. about the ants they can acctually be a big problem. the ants will be attracted to any left over food. there are no dangerous ants where i live, but the small ants we have around here get all over the food dish once in a while. some ants and devour turtles in other parts of the world i know so you might want to be careful with that