General Care Discussion :: New turtles

[azbones]

Long story. My wife brought home a baby turtle she bought off of some guy on the side of the road. He was selling the turtle cage with a free turtle to get by the laws. I have agood sized pond in the back yard but we kept it inside for a few days. I get a good idea and decide to put the turtle in the pond for a few hours. Now I work nights so on my off days I'm up at night. So I put the turtle in the pond and he's having a good time swimming around and stuff. I go out a couple hours later and cant find him. I think the worse and check the intake of the pump. I stick my hand in the water and feel the inake. Sure enough the poor turtle got sucked into the intake and drown. I take the turtle and sorta look at it. It felt and looked like it's guts gut sucked out. The pump is pretty powerful. I threw the turtle in the trash and drain the pond. My wife woke up and I tell her the news. She is mad and I feel worse. I had court so I leave. I get home and my kids are mad at me. So I figger that I'll get another turtle at a later date when I rework the pond. Three weeks go by and my wife now comes home with 2 turtles. I search the web and find this site. I get a tank set up for our two new friends. Mind you I still feel very bad about the first turtle. The turtles love the tank and my wife tells me that they cant go into the pond until they get older. I still needed to rework the intake on the pond pump anyway and wanted to get some plants set up. So one day I decide to work on the pond. It was during the day. I step inside of it and start removing rocks. Then I see a nasty looking turtle shell. I figgured that the cats drug it out of the trash. Then the thing kinda moved. I thought great, bugs infested it. Then I looked closer and it really moved. The poor guy was alive! Four weeks in Arizona at 110 a day, no water, food, or shade. I rushed him inside and put him in some shallow water and gave him some food. Later that day I put him in the tank with the other 2. Now I'm not sure if the cats took him out of the trash, or it was just some nasty crap that got stuck in the pump or what. Man I felt like an idiot. My kids were pretty happy though. The vet said that he's fine.

[untsmurf]

Still, I would keep him in a separate tank so you can monitor him for a while. He might have something and you don't want to give it to your new turts.

[DavidY]

Wow! What a harrowing experience for the poor little guy! When you first thought you pulled the turtle out from the pump intake, it was night time right? So most likely it was something else that you pulled out and not the turtle. I don't think it would have been able to survive something like that if it felt and looked like its guts had been sucked out.

When you found him in the bottom of the ponds was there any mud or decaying leaf litter down there? Or something else wet or cool that he was able to shelter in? That's pretty hard to imagine that a baby RES could survive for 4 weeks in that kind of heat without any water or shade.

Well, either way, glad to hear that you have a healthy baby turtle again (actually 3 now). Welcome to the forum too!

[Safdar]

That must have been a horrifieing time, im glad hes doing good now, just keep checking on him.

[SpotsMama]

My goodness what a strange story! Sometimes the little turtles are so delicate and it seems like no matter how hard people try they don't make it. Then there's one like yours. I hope he continues to survive.

[Caelestis]

Poor turtle... You should have realized that the turtle might get stuck in the filter. Your family already probably told you that by now so I'm not going to bother you. Hope the turtles work out, they are great pets and fun to watch!

[urbancleopatra]

WOW that's simply amazing. take extra special care of that guy and maybe name it like Survivor or something.