Reptile & Amphibian Forums

With all the rain we've had here, the plants in the pen are really growing fast and making the pen look better. The turtles survived Tropical Storm Bill without any problems. This pen has 15 adults, 8 three year olds, and 15 one year olds. 10 of the one year olds are still in an aquarium because they're still a bit small. So far this year I've collected 23 eggs from the pen and as I type this one of my females is laying her second batch of eggs this year. The pen was expanded a few months back and its not approximately 25x16 feet in size.

A Live Oak tree is part of the pen now. Its a great place for the turtles to dig, and attracts many insects for them to eat, especially worms.

I was wondering where you are located? I noticed you said your turtles survived Tropical Storm Bill. It made landfall around Morgan City, LA, which is an hour or two southeast from me. Of course, Bill moved northeast and affected most of the Gulf Coast and Atlantic states, so you could be located almost anywhere in the south east or east.

Steve

I live in the northshore area. We got hit pretty hard, lots of big tree limbs down though we didnt lose any trees thankfully. It was worse than both storms we got last year.

Is northshore a city? What state do you live in?
Sorry about all your tree limbs falling. Last October, Hurricane Lili hit us dead on, with the eye moving almost directly over us, from what we could tell, as the electricity was out. We had three trees knocked down in our yard, and many tree limbs and other debris. There were also many small tornadoes that hit my area, and I'm sure many other areas as well. The winds were around 100 m.p.h., but the evening before it hit, the winds were around 145 or 150 m.p.h. The only thing that stopped it from being that strong when it hit, was that the week before, Hurricane Isador passed in the same general area and cooled off the water, causing Lili to weaken overnight before it hit the next morning. I have a few pics of the damagein my webshots album from after Lili passed. My user name is steve5201 if you want to take a look. I only have pics from a few spots around my yard, but the damage was much greater than it looks in the pictures. I think the only good thing that came out of the storm was that it knocked down a tree in my back yard, and now I don't have to work around it to build my turtle pens. My pens won't be as big as yours, so the tree would have taken up a large part of the pen.

Take care,
Steve

I just read in one of you posts that you are in LA. Sorry for my second post asking you again. Where is the northshore area? Around what larger city is it located?

Steve

I live in LA, on the north side of Lake Ponchatrain, which is called the Northshore. I figured you'd know what I meant when I said northshore

I figured that is what you meant, but I wasn't quite sure. It seems that there are numerous people who keep boxies in your area. A year and a half ago I purchased two female easterns from someone in Slidell, and I will soon be purchasing 1.2 gulf coast and 0.2 three toeds from someone in Lacombe. What city do you live in?
What species/sub-species of box turtles do you keep?

Steve

I think they're all three toed.

The oak tree has a few holes in it which make great natural hiding places for the turtles that can fit in them. Here are 2 three year olds and 1 one year old.

thats a great pen, in what state are you keeping them in?

LA

Here is a picture of my largest female. She's the one that is laying eggs right now.

Here's a pic of one of the 1 year olds eating a piece of bannana.

Here's another view of the pen. This is a favorite hiding place for the younger turtles.

What can I say besides "Wow!" I am impressed. You have spent a great deal of time and for that matter money. Have you had any problems with the RR tyes? I am most concerned with exscape. I am in the process of plaining my out door pin for my 1.2 Greeks, 1.1 russains, and 1 three toe. Of couse they will not be kept together. I have thought about rr tyes, but is there any health risk? Did you dig down into the ground, and if so how far? I love the oak tree. What a great idea. I looks great and must be working even better then it looks!!

Thanks for the compliment. It's taken some time to get it looking like that. The railroad ties aren't too expensive. At the local hardware store they are about $8 a piece. A lot of the dirt and mulch came from my yard, and all the plants grow wild in my yard so I just pull up anything that looks good, even though its mostly weeds.
As for the railroad ties themselves, the box turtles can't climb out of them, as long as you've got 2 ties stacked on one another. I think putting 3 together would increase the chance of the wall collapsing, but 2 works fine and is sturdy. The corners need something to block the top, because the turtles can shimmy up the corners. I used stepping stones. The ties are just a couple of inches in the ground. The natural ground in my yard is very hard and has lots of gravel in it from previous owners of the land from years ago. I don't think theres any health issue. The ones I bought had a little bit of tar residue on them, but I don't think its harmful.

What a nice great big habitat. If your turtles are rewarding you with that many eggs, you must be doing some things right.

Do you have any predation problems with the wide open space? Raccoons or such?

Also, have you had any trouble with keeping 1 year olds in the same vicinity as a full grown adult. At one, it seems like they would still be in 'food item' range.

Cheers and thanks for sharing.

Paul

What a nice great big habitat. If your turtles are rewarding you with that many eggs, you must be doing some things right.

Do you have any predation problems with the wide open space? Raccoons or such?

Also, have you had any trouble with keeping 1 year olds in the same vicinity as a full grown adult. At one, it seems like they would still be in 'food item' range.

Cheers and thanks for sharing.

I don't think I have any problems with predation. I honestly can't keep track of all the babies in the pen. There's 15 of them and I usually see 5 out at the same time. They each look a little different so I know I'm not seeing the same 5 all the time. The pen is too big to even find all the adults at one time. My dogs in the kennel next to the pen seem to deter opossums and racoons. My biggest worry is owls, but I've done all I can to provide as many hiding places as possible. I look at it as being a lot safer than the real wild for the babies.

The adults don't bother the babies at all. They're big enough to where they can't be hurt by the adults. I have 10 from last year that are still a bit small, so I'll keep them inside for another month or two, which is about the time the new eggs will start hatching.

What a nice great big habitat. If your turtles are rewarding you with that many eggs, you must be doing some things right.

Do you have any predation problems with the wide open space? Raccoons or such?

Also, have you had any trouble with keeping 1 year olds in the same vicinity as a full grown adult. At one, it seems like they would still be in 'food item' range.

Cheers and thanks for sharing.

Paul

It looks great! You're obviously doing things right if you have that many youngsters & eggs! Very impressive.
Did it flood at all during the tropical storm? I love to hear about any flood proofing measures you taken...
Thanks for the pictures.
Stephanie

I don't have any flooding problems at all. I think my yard was an old river bed because it's sandy and it drains really fast and I live on an area thats a little raised. We can get 6 inches of rain in a day, and an hour later most of the water is gone. Now go a few miles down the road, and they're underwater after a big rain