Hey everyone, a few of you have asked me how George's turtles are doing, i sent him an email and this is what he said:
Hi Kyle,
Sorry to hear about the turtles that died. I have not visited the forum
lately, but did this evening to read your account. The rescued turtles
are
doing amazingly well. Of 203 rescued 8 died within 3 weeks of the
rescue.
Since then, with the sad exception of your recent deaths. NONE have
died.
It has been an a rewarding experience. The turtles have hundreds of
supporters at my school. Many have been adopted by individual kids and
others by entire classrooms of kids. I still have about 90 left at
home,
but outside of about a dozen neck infections due to rapid growth spurts
I
have not had too many problems. The neck infections have cleared up in
half a dozen, but I'm still treating the others. Even though they have
the
neck infection they are still very vigorous.
The size difference between the turtles is very interesting as some
have
grown 2 to 3 times as big as others. Some have barely grown at all.
Even
though certain turtles remain small they are healthy. They eat well and
bask appropriately.
Besides the neck infection, the only other health problem occurred in
one
of the tanks at school where we had four turtles get very sick within
days
of each other. I took the sick ones home and gave then some TLC and
they
quickly returned to their vital selves. It turns out that the basking
area
in that specific tank was not warm enough and they were not digesting
their food properly. With a minor adjustment there have been no more
problems in that tank.
The distinct personalities of individual turtles is fascinating. All
have
received the same care in the same environment, but some are brave and
bold while most are instinctively cautious.
Good Luck with your remaining crew! I enjoyed the photos that you
posted.
If you want you can post this information as an update.
Take Care,
George
