Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Being cooped up in only 1/3 of his wild territory doesn't seem to be upsetting Hobo boy at all.
Yesterday I saw him inside the little brick turtle house we built, he was awake & staring at the empty food plate. I put food on it, he ate it.
Then the dog & I sat near the tree where I always make a puddle for him. I watched him walk to it right after he ate he walked past us & he was very close to us, he stopped & looked at us, continued to the water & got in. He did a little wiggle, drank some water did the box turtle moving of the back feet around in the water for fun, then left.
He looked like "I am KING of the lawn,"lol "I know where everything is & I know where/how to get whatever I need."
He acts like he's totally comfortable being here he just does not want to be picked up so I do what I can to avoid that. I really think he is happy now & I know this is better than being dog chewed.

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PHRatz

Your on going narratives of your turtles lives are very intresting and informative. I have two males and comparing your turtles behavior with mine, are like night and day. are yours captive born or all wild easterns?
Keep writing their adventures as I look forward to see what Hobo ,Charity, Shell E and Janie are up to.
Thanks NorristheNut

Thanks Norris,
I write what I do because I'd like to read similar info from others. IMO it does help to compare notes on their behavior so that's why I ramble on about mine. So because you asked, here's a long ramble.
Mine are not Easterns, they are western ornates.
Are they T.O. ornata or T.O. luteola? My friend Doug Hotle the curator of the Abilene Zoo tells me that there is a box turtle study happening now. Taxonomists are considering doing away with the luteola designation because it's just too darn difficult to determine which is ornata & which is luteola. They do overlap, they do interbreed, they have the same needs so what's the point in separating them? Personally I hope that change happens.
My boxies aren't CB turtles. I've always been a person who believes in keeping CB pets, not WC but things happen...
Shell E was the first one to move in with us 5 years ago, she was found broken after being dog chewed.
Her name is Shell E only because when I took her to a vet as a wild animal in need not a pet, they needed a name for her medical records. The receptionist said how about Shelly? I said whatever but hey spell it Shell E so it won't be so cliche. lol
I hadn't planned to keep her but it took 2 years for her to heal & during that time I realized she's missing so much of the anterior portion of her carapace, she can't close up.
After 2 years here she was spoiled rotten too, I couldn't release her.
Then Charity was brought to me by neighborhood kids. I hadn't planned to keep her either but she was starving, then I noticed the nail polish on her. I think she'd been someone's captive for years. Did she not know how to find food? I think she didn't.

Janie, I wasn't going to keep her but we were in a hurry to meet with someone expecting us 35 miles away, then by the time that was over it was too dark to find a spot to release her. We had to go to a funeral out of town the next day. It was a long trip, we had to leave early without time to find a place for her so we left her in our yard where she could leave on her own but she didn't leave.
4 days later when we arrived home from the funeral as I stepped out of the car the woman next door handed Hobo to me, & that was about half an hour after she'd taken him from the dog's mouth next door to her.
After 3-5 years of having him visit us each summer looking for a hand out, finding out he'd just been saved from being a dog chew toy like Shell E, we just couldn't stand the thought of letting him outside this fence again.
There are 8 houses under contruction that I can see when I look out my front door, if we leave Hobo out there now, I don't even want to think about what might happen to him.
So now we have 4 & I like to talk about them because they are such awesome creatures!
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PHRatz

So Norris, your turn!
Are your turtles Easterns? Are they CB?
What sort of differences do you see in their behavior?
Do you keep them together & do they get along with one another?
I can tell that Hobo is very territorial, are your males like that?

If I have the girls out where Hobo can see them and he's not in mating mode he'll go after them to find out who they are. He really looks like he's going to DO something about this turtle he sees in his territory but then when he gets close to them & sees that they aren't male he'll turn around & walk away. I think but don't know for sure that if I put another male in his territory he wouldn't be happy about that.
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PHRatz

Both my turtles are Eastern and are road saves. Tom was first he was found upside down on a state highway in West Virginia near Bluefield spinning around.
I made three passes back in my car to get him of the road. When I got to him I could see that he was hurt, his shell was cracked all the way through along his one side on the bottom and he had teeth marks in his plastron. So we took him home, back to northern Ohio near lake Erie, and taped him tighter and cleaned his crack with peroxide. It was three months before he started eating then he developed a respiratory problems….off to the vet. 18 antibiotic shots and
180$ later he’s fine. That was three years ago.

Tina the other male, I’ll get to his name in a sec, was found in southern Ohio
During the spring floods we had last year stranded on highway intersection island
That was under water except for a few square feet are that he/she was on,
Just prior to that we had a violent thunder storm. We though Tina was a female
by her markings and flat bottom. She showed us later that she was a he when he
started fanning himself in the water. My wife didn’t want to change the name..so
it’s still Tina. To this day if we have a thunder storm Tina runs around in the rain even when she has ample places to hide I wonder if she was traumatized.

Tom and Tina both live in our garden during the day and inside in the evening.
Got to run now in my next correspondence I’ll go into detail on their getting along and their living arrangements that another story and pretty interesting.

I’ll answer this thread in a few days as I’m going out of town till Sunday.

Norris

Tom & Tina, lol that's funny Tina turned out to be a boy.
That's why we named our aquatics goofy names Scooter & Fluffy. We figured those names could fit male or female then they both turned out to be male.
Sounds like both Tom & Tina are lucky turtles, good thing you picked them up, & not someone else who isn't willing to pay a vet.
Ok waiting to hear the rest of the story when you get back, have a good trip.
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PHRatz

Hey, I'll tell you what. You should write a book! I'm serious, put these stories in some kinda of story, and ...well..I'd buy it!
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0.1.0 ornate box turtle
1.0.0 eastern box turtle
0.1.0 Australian shepard
1.3.0 chickens
3.2.0 children (do I still count the married ones?)
1.0.0 husband

>>Hey, I'll tell you what. You should write a book! I'm serious, put these stories in some kinda of story, and ...well..I'd buy it!

LOL hey I never thought of that before. hmmmmm putting ideas in my head now. lol
You know it would be nice if nonturtle keepers would read/hear/see this kind of stuff. I understand that these aren't dogs or cats we're keeping & they don't really fall in love with their humans. They do interact with us though so I wish other people who don't know turtles would understand they aren't just brainless moving rocks & that they do deserve our respect.
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PHRatz

Soooo....how many pages ya got done so far??
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0.1.0 ornate box turtle
1.0.0 eastern box turtle
0.1.0 Australian shepard
1.3.0 chickens
3.2.0 children (do I still count the married ones?)
1.0.0 husband