General Care Discussion :: What Now????????????????????????????????

[oobie58]

my hatchling is spending a lot of time basking. he ate 2 crickets in the 1 and a half weeks i have had him. i have only fed him 2 crickets because its like junk food to a turtle (so i have hered). I have him in a 10 gallon with a heat light and will be getting a ubv light soon. when i took him outside today he would walk quick and than sit and i dont know how to realy explain it it was just a realy wierd walk. he also has some wierd brown splotches on his stomach. he is not eating that much eather but i got some tuna today and will soak a couple pellets in that and see what happens. some one please help i dont want anything to happen to my baby. he is so awesome. ill try to post a picture later. thanks for anyone who helps.




johnny

[industrial_girl_2000]

Definitely post pictures so we can help you!

Since you just got this turtle (only 1.5 weeks ago!), I would allow him some time to get used to his new surroundings & tank. I wouldn't take him outside yet or handle him too much. If you are having a hard time getting him to eat, stressing him isn't going to help.

Do you have a water heater in the tank? What is the water temperature?

[SpotsMama]

Here are some tips on enticing eating:

http://www.redearslider.com/entice_eating.html

I think you should try to get him to eat because he's going to need some calories. Just to get him started, it's ok to offer him some things that normally are only used for treats. Soaking the pellets in tuna water sounds good! Let us know how that goes. If he still doesn't go for it we can help some more.

Like Industrial Girl said< the water temp is very important> the most common reason for turtles not eating is that their water temp is too cold> for a hatchling the water temp should be around 78 degrees.

Good luck. Keep us posted.

[scripta_elegans]

If he will eat crickets, you can try mixing a pellet or 2 in with the crickets. I got my babies to eat by mixing a few pellets into the shrimp, and just kept putting in less shrimp and more pellets each day. After about a week they were eating pellets.

[marisa]

What's the temp of the water and basking area? A water temp of 78F and a basking area temp of 88-90F are good for a healthy hatchling.

The brown spotches on the plastron---these are different from the normal dark splotches that a RES normally has on the plastron? Can you post a pic of the the plastron (undershell) when it's dry?

[oobie58]

http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10000 it looks a lot like the under shell of these turtles.

[kmichael55]

The plastron of Josie's turtles looks completely normal to me, maybe there's something I'm not seeing?

[SpotsMama]

The underneath shells (plastrons) of the two little turtles in the video are beautiful! Quite healthy!

[oobie58]

if you look vary close on one of there under bellys you will see some brown splotches.

[Tenodera]

Well thats normal colouring...I think only yellow-bellied sliders don't have splotches...

[marisa]

If the plastrons look like those in the pics, what is the problem with them?

If I look at the last pic, there are two darkish areas near the center of the seam---this is normal coloring, my RES has something similar. If you mean splotches that appear out of focus (I see a few of the splotches have this), this is due to growth.