Other Turtle Discussion :: Bays Mountain

[TNTurtles]

So this weekend my vet recommended that i go to Bays Mountain Park in Kingsport, TN. She said they had a great RES habitat and it would be cool to see. So i went and they had probably 15 RES ranging from 3" to 12". It was absolutly amazing! The one thing that i was a little confused about was their pond. The pond was probably about 15 feet wide and about 1 foot deep. Now i know turtles like things longer than deeper and thats fine but it barely allowed for free swimming. The little ones could swim fine but the bigger ones had their feet touching the bottom most of the time. Now i know how much my 2 turts love to swim so i didn't know if we provide them with too much water b/c we cant provide that much land. Kind of like we make up with the water what we cant with the land. If im wrong let me know, just a thought. I wish i had pics but they are from a disposable camera.

[steve]

Are you sure it was only a foot deep? The water may not have given you an accurate view. My female RES is only half her adult size but when she slides into the water from the bask area, she drops nearly 10 inches. I gotta get started on the above tank bask area!

[TNTurtles]

well if you want to check out the website pics they are on there but its when they were building and i dont know if they had it deep enough yet
http://www.baysmountain.com/
Go there and click "Live Animals" on the left, then at the top click "Animal Enclosures" then "Turtles"
Its a bad picture. It could have been deeper though, there was a lot of mud and leaves on the bottom. It probably was.
But, if you live in TN i recommend a trip there, it was amazing. Out of the 3 hrs I spent there, half of it was prolly watching the RES. yes, i know....but i do it at home to. I can watch them for hours!