Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have a seriously carivorous eastern boxie."nanners" (what,she REALLY liked banana pieces as a little one) is more of an apex predator than any turtle i've ever had,including snappers.if she sees or smells a fuzzy mouse when i'm feeding the snakes,she goes into overdrive,pacing her enclosure like crazy,making weird grunting sounds.once or twice a month,one of the snakes won't eat,and i give her the fuzzy.total brutality,she is all over it,like white on rice.she's cb '06,maybe a hair over 4" straight shell length,and eats everything,just not with the same zeal as a mouse.i'm careful not to give her too much protein,so she only gets 2 fuzzies a month,max.coolest turtle ever.
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1.1 cb spotted turtles (parker(f),stinky(m))
0.0.2 cb baby razorback musks (way too cute)
0.0.1 cb baby eastern mud (also ridiculously cute)
0.0.1 cb reeve's turtle (george)
0.0.1 cb eastern box (this year's young 'un)
2.6 ltc eastern box breeders
0.1 cb'06 eastern box(nanners)
1.2 cb'08 kenyan sand boas(1 albino,1 anery,1 normal)
1.1 israeli dune geckos
1.0 cb '03 homo sapien(kaelan,6)
"jesus is coming-when i count to 3,everyone jump out and yell SURPRISE!!"

This reminds me of my turtles. I never really realized just how much they like carrion until I had an encounter in my own backyard.
A few years ago I heard a loud sound on one of our back windows. I ran to the back yard. We had a mourning dove fly into one of our windows and it broke its neck. It was flopping around on one of my walkways so I headed back into the house to finish what I was doing. I figured I'd give it time to die alone and then I would pick it up and dispose of it. I went back out about 1/2 an hour later and three of my turtles were devouring it. Since then I learned from boxienuts how to make turtle meatballs using venison, several veggies, turtle sticks, and some other stuff. I don't think protein is much of a problem with turtles.
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Vichris
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"- Marcus Aurelius

The title of your post didn't make much sense to me when you went on to say that your turtle will eat anything.

Mine seem to enjoy their dead animals, too. My cat has killed baby rabbits and left them in the turtle pen...the turtle polish them off with record speed, leaving behind only the odd tuft of fur.

Try putting in a live small toad if you want to find out how much of a predator your boxies are, but don't do it if you can't handle watching something savagely killed and/or eaten alive, or if you like toads, personally I like toads so I don't really recommend it, but I found this out quite by accident a few years ago, like I said I like toads so I found a couple on the road on the way home from work in the spring and I thought it would be neat to put them in the box turtle cage for a while....i figured they both like to eat nightcrawlers so they could eat some worms togather and be "buddies"....needless to say the boxies instictive predatory reaction was instant and a little shocking, actually the way they chased (hunted) them down was quite impressive, they don't usually move that fast. I would guess the reaction would be the same if I put a small garter snake in the cage, or a live day old rat pinkie, heck I think a day old kitten might even be in trouble, lol, my wife wouldn't think that was very funny, oops sorry hehe
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

the toad's toxins don't bother the boxie?i always thought that the only thing that could eat toads easily was hognoses.huh...learn something new every day.and she always eats the rodent live,for 2 reasons;the sand boas are'nt terribly fond of frozen thawed,and i just love to hear the squeeks..terrible,i know..but freakin awesome to watch.unlike water turtles,which make a horrific mess,'nanners' eats everything,and looks for more.she is my little trashcan,nothing gets wasted.
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1.1 cb spotted turtles (parker(f),stinky(m))
0.0.2 cb baby razorback musks (way too cute)
0.0.1 cb baby eastern mud (also ridiculously cute)
0.0.1 cb reeve's turtle (george)
0.0.1 cb eastern box (this year's young 'un)
2.6 ltc eastern box breeders
0.1 cb'06 eastern box(nanners)
1.2 cb'08 kenyan sand boas(1 albino,1 anery,1 normal)
1.1 israeli dune geckos
1.0 cb '03 homo sapien(kaelan,6)
"jesus is coming-when i count to 3,everyone jump out and yell SURPRISE!!"

They aren't phased by toad toxin or toadstools (wild mushrooms), garter snakes will also eat toads and are one of the few animals that will too.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

sweet,i'm actually looking forward to the annual spectacle of thousands of baby toads hopping out of my pond now..bite sized hopping snacks,yay!
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1.1 cb spotted turtles (parker(f),stinky(m))
0.0.2 cb baby razorback musks (way too cute)
0.0.1 cb baby eastern mud (also ridiculously cute)
0.0.1 cb reeve's turtle (george)
0.0.1 cb eastern box (this year's young 'un)
2.6 ltc eastern box breeders
0.1 cb'06 eastern box(nanners)
1.2 cb'08 kenyan sand boas(1 albino,1 anery,1 normal)
1.1 israeli dune geckos
1.0 cb '03 homo sapien(kaelan,6)
"jesus is coming-when i count to 3,everyone jump out and yell SURPRISE!!"

I enjoy watching the tadpoles metamorph out of our ponds too, I think the birds and wild garter snake babies in the back yard get quite a few "snacks" also.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

my son is thrilled every year when there are toad eggs everywhere in the pond.i learned the hard way to unplug the fountain until the eggs hatch,it is not fun to clean toad spawn out of the filter.i go thru 4 distinct rounds of tadpoles a year;
first the toads,then the tree frogs,then the wood frogs,then the toads again.freakin ridiculous.oh well,i put baby pickerels in there for a reason...
my pond isn't terribly huge;kidney shaped,10' long,6' wide at the widest,1 1/2' wide at the narrowest,and maybe almost 3' deep in the deepest part.2 islands,maybe 2 square ft each.originally planned to keep turtles in it,but have yet to find any sort of fencing or barrier that actually keeps them in.tried cinder block,bricks,chicken wire,concrete garden border,landscape timbers,etc.nothing works,so i gave up and just keep fish in it.oh,and tadpoles,too.
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1.1 cb spotted turtles (parker(f),stinky(m))
0.0.2 cb baby razorback musks (way too cute)
0.0.1 cb baby eastern mud (also ridiculously cute)
0.0.1 cb reeve's turtle (george)
0.0.1 cb eastern box (this year's young 'un)
2.6 ltc eastern box breeders
0.1 cb'06 eastern box(nanners)
1.2 cb'08 kenyan sand boas(1 albino,1 anery,1 normal)
1.1 israeli dune geckos
1.0 cb '03 homo sapien(kaelan,6)
"jesus is coming-when i count to 3,everyone jump out and yell SURPRISE!!"

I would love to have wood frogs around here, aren't they the ones that make a loud barking sound? we just have american toads, green frogs, leopard, bull, crickets, gray trees that come to our pond, but mostly it's the toads that spawn.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

yeah,thats them.if they just spawned and left,i would'nt mind,but they end up eating most of my fish,too,so i end up scooping them out with the net,and flipping them into one of the neighborhood ponds.i end up having ti restock my pond with minnows and mosquitofish 2 or 3 times a years.i get the grey tree frogs,and the green treefrogs,sometimes there's such a racket coming from my pond that i'll look out and see 40 or so frogs,just all over the place.
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1.1 cb spotted turtles (parker(f),stinky(m))
0.0.2 cb baby razorback musks (way too cute)
0.0.1 cb baby eastern mud (also ridiculously cute)
0.0.1 cb reeve's turtle (george)
0.0.1 cb eastern box (this year's young 'un)
2.6 ltc eastern box breeders
0.1 cb'06 eastern box(nanners)
1.2 cb'08 kenyan sand boas(1 albino,1 anery,1 normal)
1.1 israeli dune geckos
1.0 cb '03 homo sapien(kaelan,6)
"jesus is coming-when i count to 3,everyone jump out and yell SURPRISE!!"

it's started already.went out to check on my adult boxies,give them some superworms and strawberries,and what do i see in my pond?string upon string of toad eggs,all intertwined around my water lillies.they didn't waste any time this year..although the high temps have been in the mid 80's the last couple days...
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1.1 cb spotted turtles (parker(f),stinky(m))
0.0.2 cb baby razorback musks (way too cute)
0.0.1 cb baby eastern mud (also ridiculously cute)
0.0.1 cb reeve's turtle (george)
0.0.1 cb eastern box (this year's young 'un)
2.6 ltc eastern box breeders
0.1 cb'06 eastern box(nanners)
1.2 cb'08 kenyan sand boas(1 albino,1 anery,1 normal)
1.1 israeli dune geckos
1.0 cb '03 homo sapien(kaelan,6)
"jesus is coming-when i count to 3,everyone jump out and yell SURPRISE!!"