Let me just say I agree 100 percent with what jigsav said. Wood turtles are a total step above any turtle as far as intelligence. They are the most aggressive turtle I've seen when it comes to bullying and mating. A group of eight turtles in a 10*15 cage would result in some carnage. A group of four at the most would be sufficient. While wood turtles are to me the most interesting turtle because of there puppy like friendliness, the are also a handful, and get bored very easy. They require almost constant stimuli to be satisfied. I'm not sure if your goal is to produce lots of eggs for a business of sorts, or simply pets for you kids. If it is the later I would go with one male and two females. Even if you get more females one male will probably dominate the rest. Also in the wild I've see dozens of wood turtles, but very few females. I trout fish so I see mostly adult males along and in streambeds. My suspicion is females get the hell away from the stream to avoid aggressive males, heading into upland forest.



As for the enclosure make sure it has a lid on it. Wood turtles tend to sleep in water at night making them highly vulnerable to raccoons. You don't want to come out in the morning to a wood turtle on its back with its legs chewed off....not a good feeling. I would make to cage 65% water, 35% land. Land in a captive environment is really only used for foraging, getting away and basking. Most time is spent in the water. A stream flowing in to a good size pond is really the ultimate setup. A nice way to do this is use a preformed pond and place it higher up, then use some pond liner for a stream and a main pond at the end. The depth of the pond can be a 12-24 inches, but make sure the sides are sloped with plenty of things to climb onto. Hostas are great plants for land along with lots of ferns. To me ferns are the best as they don't take up lots of space but branch out as they get higher. Tomatoe, strawberry, and blueberry plants are good as well and will encourage foraging. As for hibernating the pond should be deep enough so they can hibernate at the bottom, mud and leaves are good at the bottom. Def. make sure you have a high powered pump and filter. As unclean conditions will cause further stress on the animals. Here are some pics of my two enclosures, I only have one sub adult wood turtle, and two juvies, but I've been studying this guys since I was a teenager in the wild so most of my info should be accurate. Good luck

30*10 fully enclosed, 10*10 land, 20*10 water features.





Here is my old enclosure, which was a fenced in backyard. Unfortunately a raccoon found its way in too much, now it is just a fish pond but still a great wood turtle set up,

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