Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This little guy/gal was abandoned where I work (vet hospital) and we wanted to give it a second chance. It's only about 3-4 inches long and has few/no toes (bad sheds?) Curious as to what species it might be, as we want to have the husbandry right to ensure his/her best chances of survival. I've been searching online and have some ideas but can't be positive so I thought I'd ask the experts. Any ideas?

Looks like a three toed box turtle. You can feed him/her some tortoise pellet twice a week or some Mazuri tortoise pellets, moistened of course, with some insects dusted with multivitamins and calcium supplements, and inbetween each feeding offer him some veggies like grated parsips, green beans, snow peas, snap peas, string beans, grated winter squash mix with some dandelion greens, mustard greens, collard greens, escarole, endive and a little fruits, like, cantaloupe, black berries, figs, blueberries, pappaya and mango. Don't give too much fruits because it has very little nutrients. Please do some more research before asking! haave a nice day! thanks!

sorry! that's turtle pellets, like Reptomin and Mazuri turtle pellets..., but you can offer some mazuri tortoise pellets in addition to feeding him just the turtle pellets. That's twice a week only little amount of the turtle pellets... They can't eat too much protein or the result will be like what you haave shown on the picture. IF you aare feeding the Mauzri tortoise chow they can eat a little bit more that stuff. It doesn't have as much protein as the turtle pellets.

Your box turtle needs calcium shots... Do you see the depressed region on the back of the shell where the hind legs are? It means your turtle is growing to fast and it's not getting enough calcium. The shell is pushing down on the soft bone beneath causing a depressed region. Try offering less protein and more veggies with calcium supplement with vitamin D3. Please find a reputable herp vets in your area to bring him in for a check up and ask your doctor how much multivitamins and calcium supplements he needs per week.

Offer it an earthworm or 2 & really make its day.
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DeeCee

I have an abandoned or escaped female that is just like yours, except she is fully grown and there's nothing I could do about fixing the shell deformity. What you need to do is stop feeding a lot of protein rich food. Feed her more veggies and fruits as I described and supplement it with multivitamin supplement about 5 times a week and calcium supplement 7 times a week since she is malnourished. You can decrease that over time. You always want to supplement more calcium than the vitamins because the food they eat already has a lot of phosphorous, like veggies, greens and insects, and on top of that the multivitamins also has some phosphorous.. You want to get caclium to phosphorous ratio of about 2:1, or 1.5:1, or 1:1...basically the calcium range has to be between 2 to 1. That's why I would supplement him/her extra two days with just the calcium alone.

I know some people have given their box turtles Mazuri tortoise chow with great result. It has a lot less protein, so you can feed him more of that stuff. And no you don't need to supplement. I know some people that feed this stuff to them everyday without bad side-effects, like shell deformity and metabolic bone disease.

Thanks so much! I had my suspicions about it being a box turtle by the look of the eyes, but he/she is so sick and scrawny I thought it could be a malnourished tortoise. I haven't the slightest idea what the living situation was prior to being dumped with us yesterday, housing diet or whatever. I set up a 10gal aquarium with pee pads on the bottom and a shallow wading pool and some salad (from one of the doctors' lunches..) to get him/her through the night while I looked into IDing. I'll start reading up and look into calcium injections also. I definitely appreciate all the help! Any other input is welcome!

You are welcome! Here's a good link to start:
http://www.boxturtlesite.info/

You can post your questions on this forum also, and there are care sheets for you to look over. There are a lot of knowledgable people there.
http://www.turtleforum.com/forum/upload/index.php?act=home

YOu can lay off the protein for a while until his shell issue is resolved. He probably grown too fast and need to slow down. Just feed him salad everyday and take him to see a reputal herp vets who have a great deal of experience with chelonians. You can take him to U.C. Davis, and I think there's a great turtle/totoise vets in Florida, also, and one Colorado in East Alamida I think.

I wish we were closer to some chelonian vets.. I'm in northern MA where we have few turtle species to begin with, and there are mighty strict laws about owning the majority of those that can be imported. Another reason I was anxious to know what we had!

You know you should visit Allen Repashy forums. He makes great supplements, which I am currently using. You can ask a lot of questions over ther about the supplements and Allen Repashy will also answer many of the questions about the supplements. The peole are freindly, espeically Allen himself, so give it a go.
http://www.forums.repashy.com/

Hi TamiLynne,

If you are in north(eastern) MA, you aren't far from NERD in Plaistow, NH. Kevin McCurley (the owner) could probably give you a lot of good husbandry advice and/or might even take the Box Turtle from you and keep it in his own collection. He used to have a fairly large group of Box Turtles which he bred yearly as I recall. Tell him I said to get in touch with him for advice.

Good Luck,

Bill Zovickian