Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We recently found a female box turtle (someone at the feed store told us it was a female, flat bottom. She appears full grown. We tried putting her in an enclosure about 4' x 3', but she kept trying to climb out and falling upside down. We were going out of town this past weekend and I didn't want the poor thing to die, so we took her out of the enclosure and gave her free roam of our yard. I left a large cat liter size container of water and a big bowl of collard greens, tomatos, mealie worms for her. When we came home, it didn't look like any food was gone, but we found her in the dog house. The dog doesn't seem to mind her, just sniffs at her. My question is can I leave her run around the yard? Should I leave her food or will she find food on her own. My 8 yr old son loves her, but we want to provide a good enviroment for her. She is actually quite tame. Thanks for any info you can provide.

I wouldn't want to chance leaving her to roam around the yard with my dogs out there. Mine don't seem to have a problem with my turtle either, but I've heard stories including one about how the dog was fine with the turtle and then 2 years later the people came home and found the dog had killed the turtle. I think it just depends on how much you trust your dog , and their personality. As far as the food goes I think for the most part the turtle should be able to find food on her own, but you may want to put out some fruits and vegtables everyonce in a while if she doesn't have access to any growing outside.

best way to care for the box turtle is to let it go where is was found, now's a good time to teach your son that wild animals belong in the wild(no matter how tame they are) not trapped in our back yards with animals that have the potential to kill them(dogs are a serious threat to box turtles), there're really only two reasons a box turtle should not be released 1. the habitat it came from is over developed and too dangerous and not enough food in the area to sustain the box turtle population and 2. the box turtle is a long term captive and may carry deadly bacteria or disease which will kill off the local population, also depending on where you live it may(or may not) be illegal to have the box turtle in your care, some states allow 1-4 adult box turtles of the native subspecies without paper work and in most states it's illegal to collect them(this may depend on the subspecies)
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