Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Which make better pets? Are CA wood turtles mostly terrestrial like a box turtle or do they need a larger swimming area? Some caresheets say they're mostly terrestrial and others say they're mostly aquatic. Can you feed a CA wood turtle moist or dry box turtle food? How difficult is it to find cb CA wood turtle hatchlings and how much do they cost?

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neither animal should live on a diet of prepared foods. Fresh fruits and vegetables and all kinds of meat products are available and should be used. ONE of those meat sources can be pelleted foods.

what climate do you live in?

If you plan on keeping this animal indoors, don't bother getting a box turtle, it wont survive very long.

I live in Southern Pennsylvania, so I could keep it outside, but I don't think my parents would let build a pen in the yard. Can you keep a CA wood turtle indoors in a 30 or 50 gallon tank?

I'll just second what nathana said, " If you plan on keeping this animal indoors, don't bother getting a box turtle, it wont survive very long." I've even tried keeping Three-toeds inside. They didn't get sick but I could tell they were depressed. There's a difference between "surviving" and "Living". I have no experience with CA Woods so I can't speak about those. Show your folks some of the neat turtle enclosures people on Kingsnake have constructed. Maybe you can change their minds if they see how nice one can look.

I believe the central american wood turtles require land and water areas. Judging by their adult size, you would not want to keep them in any small tank. Perhaps you can build an indoor pen that has a very large tank in it and a table around the top of it so that it has the land area it needs and the swimming area. Then you could also see it through the tank walls from below.

It is possible to cram many kinds of turltes into small tanks and see them survive, but if you want turtles to do well they need to have appropriate housing (for box turtles of north america, this means outdoors, it can mean different things for each species), but all turtles also need a good bit of room to exercise and move about. I am on a constant quest to expand my turtle pens and I'm moving mine from having about 12 square feet each to having at least 50 square feet each (per box turtle) and they keep using all the space I provide and doing better and better.