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I am a teacher in a small town and last summer became the adoptive parent of two hatchling RES that my best friend rescued from her in-ground swimming pool. My intention was to keep them safe until they were a little bigger and then release them into the wild. Now my son and I have fallen in love with them and want to keep them as a part of our family indefinitely. We will be moving to the Kansas City area this summer and want to create an outdoor habitat for them in our backyard. Our babies have spent the last year in an aquarium near the kitchen where I can watch them and talk to them each day. They are such a joy and we want to continue to be able to watch them as they grow and thrive but want to give them a more natural environment as well as more room to grow. Any suggestions or comments would be welcome.

Never, ever release them into the wild..its a bad idea, they have depended on you or another human their whole lives, they wont know how to survive in the wild and they will simply, die..

Im glad you didnt release them.

An outdoor pond would be really nice. The larger and deeper it is, the better. If it's too shallow or small it could suffer from temperature extremes from the sun. You should also provide areas of shade. Turtles will also wander so a perimeter fence will be necessary. You should wait until the turtles are near adult size so they won't be easy pickings for the predators (ie birds).

That's very good of you not to release them. They would have a very hard time surviving in the wild after having lived as pets.

An outdoor pond for them would be wonderful! Ponds are beautiful too. Winter can be tricky. In the wild, turtles hibernate but it's always a dangerous time for them, for several reasons. Some people with man made ponds hibernate their turtles outside in the winter, but the ponds have to be very deep, you have to have mud in the bottom, etc. to make them safe. There's a recent thread on here somewhere from someone who just successfully hibernated her turtles outside in a man made pond.

Most people in climates where it gets as cold as it does in Kansas City bring their turtles inside to an aquarium or stock tank when it gets cold. There are lots of examples of people on here that do this. I will be one of them soon! I live in Texas where the winters are relatively warm but not warm enough for my RES to live outside in his brand new pond. I've had him inside in a 100 gallon aquarium and as soon as it gets a little warmer and the pond is all cleaned out then he's going to move outside. He will love it! Turtles love sunshine and all the space that a pond offers! Our pond is six feet in diameter and 2 to 2 1/2 feet deep.

Good point. I also remember reading that the turtles really don't need to hibernate and that it's probably safer for captive RES to just be kept indoors during the winter.