Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I grew up in New Jersey and we always had few Eastern Boxies that wandered into our yard in the late Spring. We kept them in a large pen in our yard and always let them go when school started. We found the same turtles more than once in the spring and several times we found babies in the "pen" We fed them earthworms, slugs, and lots of cantoulope and other fruits and veggies. I will always remember the beautiful red eyes on the males. I now live in Florida and really want a CB Eastern baby. Does anyone know where I can find one? I would NEVER take one from the wild as they becoming SO rare. I see Florida Box Turtles occasionally in the road but only move them to the other side of the road as I know that they have a relatively small territory. Anyhow, will an Eastern do OK here in FLorida? I will be moving to North Carolina in 3 or 4 years so I could build an outside enclosure then. I saw 3 adult turtles that were labeled "Western Box Turtles" in a pet store here in the Tampa Bay area today and they all looked PATHETIC in their 20 gallon aquarium. One female?? looked at me with her pathetic brown eyes as if to say get me out of here and I almost paid the $59 just to try to give her a decent life. I am still considering it but dont know much about "Westerns" What I really want is a captive bred "Eastern" Any help or advice is greatly appreciated!!

dont buy the one at the pet store, you'll just feed that market and they'll get more that you'll want to buy and then more will be shipped in and so on.., you can check the classifieds there're usually a few LTC easterns on there and sometimes ornates, just beware as some of them are recently caught adults, also you might want to check the laws regarding boxies, where you live now and where you will live later on.
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I guess I am an idiot!! I have been looking at these 3 Ornate Western Box Turtles in a 10 gallon take for about a month. Today, on my lunch hour, I went to the Pet Store again in my suit and tie and the one smaller Ornate just stood up and looked at me as if to say " PLEASE save me!" I am a very sinsible person and agree that if you buy one of these creatures your are feeding the "snatch from the wild trade" I went back to work and as I have about 100 hours of leave to burn before Jan. 1, and it is a slow week due to the holiday, my boss suggested that I take the rest of the day off. I left work and aimlessly wandered around Pinellas County and somehow ended up at Walmart and purchased the largest Rubbermaid dark plastic container they had , about 4 feet by 2 1/2 feet dark in color. Told myself, "you can always use that for something!" Then oddly, I ended up in the Home Depot buying 50 pounds of sterile "play sand", 40 pounds of sterile potting soil and a big bag of sterile spagnum/peat moss. Told myself, "you can always use this stuff" I went home and took my dogs for a nice long walk. Somehow, I ended up back at that Pet Store, usually know for its fine reptiles ( now I have a different opinion} All of the fancy "high end tortoises that grow so large were living it great conditions. I asked the girl if those Western Ornates were big eaters and she said they love crickets let me show you. Thye were ravenous!! To make a long story short, this fool now owns that little Ornate. Any advice appreciated!

>>I guess I am an idiot!! I have been looking at these 3 Ornate Western Box Turtles in a 10 gallon take for about a month. Today, on my lunch hour, I went to the Pet Store again in my suit and tie and the one smaller Ornate just stood up and looked at me as if to say " PLEASE save me!" I am a very sinsible person and agree that if you buy one of these creatures your are feeding the "snatch from the wild trade"

No I wouldn't call you an idiot, maybe compassionate.
I agree that we shouldn't encourage these pet stores to continue importing in turtles & we do only encourage them to import more when we buy them... but.. sometimes one of them tugs at your heart & you buy it.
What have you done? You have made a difference in the one individual turtle's life who may not have a life for long if left to sit in a pet store.
What needs to happen is states like mine need to put a ban on commercial collection & so far they refuse to do that. The fault lies with the state IMO, it needs to be made law that these ornate box turtles cannot be hunted & collected this way.

It's all kind of an age old dilema but what's done is done so what do you do now? Give him the best life you can of course!
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PHRatz