Reptile & Amphibian Forums

All of the turtles here are up from hibernation now. It has been very warm in Central VA: one emerged March 18.

HOoray! Thank goodness they all made it!

They have all been 'making it' without difficulty for many years now. This means that I no longer have to search the pen daily.
I'm glad they are all up because I can now open the 'annex', which gives them another 250 sq.ft. of sunny habitat in which to forage.

Nice knowing all your the turtles made it you say " I'm glad they are all up because I can now open the 'annex'" I take that to mean you somehow secure or protect their area during hibernation. A good friend of mine who has had box turtles for the last twenty some years and currently has about 6 adults and another 20 some smaller ones of 1, 2, 4, 5 year olds. All his turtles when they go under he has a central area that is secured and protected by various levels of screen cloth wire in a small gauge like a 1/4 square and up that he buries around and over their area and has never had a problem until this year. His adults came up but the other 20 some didn’t and he dug them up to find a mole’s had eaten through their shells and sucked the inside out, only one survived with a foot missing and he thinks it will make it. He lives on the edge of a woods and swampy area and needless to say he was sick. Having heard that story I’ll continue to take mine in over the winter as I live in Northeast Ohio 30 miles south of Lake Erie.

Alan

I frequently see hawks around here diving bombing trying to get the little sparrows. It was right in my back yard, too.

It's the hawks & kites that worry me as we don't seem to have a problem here with the 4-legged critters.

The hibernacula are in the original pen, so I close off the 'annex' during the winter in order to have less area to check during any warm spells, should any turtles choose to emerge.

The 'security' this arrangement provides is mostly peace of mind and expedience for me: it simply makes my potential workload smaller.

Glad to here they all made it Steph. I couldn't find one of my females last fall when I brought them into the garage, unfortunately I found her in the bottome of the pond this spring when I was spring cleaning, I also could not find my favorite male, and I haven't found him yet, but I am hoping maybe he dug down far enough to survive and just hasn't come up yet, plus I spread two bales of hay in the pen to help.
The rest are fine and outside now, but not very active as it has been cold and cloudy here the last couple weeks.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

I'm still not sure I have both of my 3 years olds up. They both look so close to the same I'm never sure unless I see them both up at the same time. I spread so many leaves in their pen last fall that they have lots more hiding places. I have seen all of the other adults and sub adults so I'm assuming the both juvies made it too.....I hope. I've seen one of them.....its been a very cool spring so far here.... dry but cool.
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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