General Care Discussion :: Important, need to know ASAP!!

[amyandandrew]

Hi guys!
We have a unique situation going on tonight. Where we live (FL) is having a freeze tonight. Usually, this wasn't a problem for us, as we would put all the turtles in our bath tub, but over the summer we converted the bathtub to a shower. We have a small pool for our younger/smaller turtles, but our two large adult turtles, we don't have anything to put them in over night anymore !!
My question is, how long can the 2 adults go without being submerged in water?? One is our RES and the other is a painted. We have them currently in one of the bathrooms wandering around freely. Will this be ok for the night, or would they be better off putting them back in the pool?? It's supposed to get to 30 here for a low tonight, with it feeling like it's 27. Help!! Please!!

[steve]

They can go a couple days. Will try to explain in a bit.

[amyandandrew]

We put them in with the babies in their small pool for now, but they'll find a way to climb out anytime now. So, we can leave them out in my mom's bathroom over night, and until about 4pm tomorrow and they'll be ok?? We're going to keep them in water as long as possible until we have to go to bed, but that'll be in about an hour. So, they'll be out from 10pm-4pm. I just don't want to walk into the bathroom in the morning, and find that they died.....

[steve]

You can simply dry dock them overnight. Put them in a box or plastic container separately, preferably lined with newspaper or paper towels. Then put them in a dark, warm and quiet room and they'll sleep. To 4 tomorrow is fine, but you might want to rehydrate them in the morning.

[amyandandrew]

Thank you so much Steve!! We're trying to find boxes right now to put them in. How would I rehydrate them in the morning? Just spray water on them with a water bottle??

[steve]

No put them in a container that's deep enough to cover their shell so they can drink and eat if you feed them. Keep an eye on them so they don't flip over and drown unless you use a much deeper container.

[amyandandrew]

We found a couple of containers to dry dock them overnight. We lined them with newspapers, and put them in the warmest place in the house--- the bathrooms. Then in the morning, I'll be able to pull out the newspapers and fill their containers up with water to at least cover their shells until someone gets home. The containers are about 10 inches deep, so I'll fill them up in the morning, and I can keep my eye on them during the day. I just can't get them back to their pond because of me being in a wheelchair, and it's not supposed to warm up til about noon.

[steve]

Sounds good. Would you have any towels for them to burrow under? It might get soiled in case you don't have anything disposable. What are their normal pond temps?

[amyandandrew]

We do have old towels that we could put in. Should we do that tonight along with the newspaper?? Right now, Journey is being a pain, and pushing all of her paper to the side. It's been an unusually warm winter here, it's been in the 80's up until this point. I'd say their water temp is usually 70's-80's when its not this kind of weather. My fiance put his hands in the water to get them when we got home, and he thinks the water was already close to the 30's....

[steve]

Keep them in a completely dark place, they'll be asleep in 5 minutes.

[amyandandrew]

We just put towels over the top of the containers to simulate complete darkness, we left about a 4 inch gap so they can get air. They calmed down as soon as the towels went over the top. Thank you so much Steve!! I'll let you know in the morning how they did.

[amyandandrew]

Thank so much Steve !! They did wonderful through the night. We didn't hear a peep out of them at all until this morning, when I heard my uncle who had a stroke and can't lift anything yell "someone come get the turtle, the turtle's trying to get through the door!" Turns out, Journey is an escape artist. She somehow bunched all of her newspaper up, used that to step up on, and it looked like she pulled the towel down in order to climb out of her tupperware bin. Cookie was quite content in staying in her tupperware bin all night. Thank you again!! It's Florida, so I'm sure we'll have to use this method again!!

[steve]

Glad to hear it! As far as I know, this works each time