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Here are photos of Ramen and Heine taken on July 29, 2009.


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This is Ramen. This one has a healthier looking shell with paler color.


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This is Heine. This is the one who got lost for 6 months and found alive and
kickin'. The white thingy on the shell is just old shell waiting to shed. Three
marginal scutes on the top of the photo have shed, notice the difference in
color.

Notice too, Heine has 13 marginal scutes on each side, while Ramen and
other normal turtles have 12.

Your turtles look really beautiful! And looks like Heine is going through a huge shed!

ShellbyRES16x, thank you. I adore my turtles.

aw so cute...how can you find him again?

Novroz,

Heine was found snuggling nicely under a small bush surrounded by soft dirt.
Other than bad shell, Heine was doing just fine and active when picked up. I don't
know what it ate during those 6 months.

The sad thing is that Heine was found while I was looking for Ramen, whom escaped
while basking. The good thing, however, is that Ramen was found only the next day.

Next project: building a storable enclosure for outside basking. I will post updates
and photos here.

I finished the outdoor enclosure thingy. Intended as a fence so that the turtles
don't escape while basking in the morning sunlight.

The "ingredients":
- 9mm board cut to 25cm by whatever the longer width is, I think it's 224cm.
- hinges and screws


Finished:

Wow! That's a great idea. Make sure and put in a water source so your turt doesn't get dehydrated.

untsmurf wrote:Wow! That's a great idea. Make sure and put in a water source so your turt doesn't get dehydrated.

Thanks for the heads up, Christi. However, I'm not planning on keeping my turtles
there for a long time, a few hours at most. Afterwards, they go back into the tank.
Today was the first time they're put in the area. Looks like everything's fine.

Next project: trying to build a canopy of some sort for the turtles to hide in if it
gets too hot while basking.

Finished the canopy/housing of some sort this morning. With my uber carpentry
skill, I created a crooked house thingy from leftover material from the enclosure
project. Well, I like working with wood, despite the lack of skills and tools.


Click for larger photo

Wow very beautiful i know your turtle will love it.....

trebzet wrote:Wow very beautiful i know your turtle will love it.....

You are too kind. Thank you very much.

Today, both turtles used it, just as I expected.

Very nice! I use one of those small plastic step stools for shade, the kind that looks like this:

Steve, why didn't I think of that?! Perhaps my hands were itching to work on
something and there were leftover materials. Haha... This gave my a laugh!
There's an easy solution and I took the long and winding road.

I'm not sure if I missed something, but you want to bury your fence at least 4 inches underground. RES like to, and will, dig to try and escape.

Thank you for the suggestion, papoopeepoo. I can't do that, however. That would
ruin the grass. Besides, the purpose of using hinges for the joints is to make
the fence foldable.

Heine, being a good escape artist that it is, escaped once by digging a little under
the fence. After providing a shade, no more escape attempts. The turtles like to
dig a little under the grass though. Looks like they want to stay cool that way
although I've provided a water dish under the shade.