Pet Turtle Care: Creating Turtle Ponds Can Be Enchanting

Turtle ponds can be delightful spaces that can enchant the whole family and the entire neighborhood.

Water features are an welcome addition to any backyard; and will likely be attractive to many people. There are many options available when creating a pond environment that it is possible for anyone to transform their backyard into a distinctive showplace. For the person that would like more than the natural elements of the pond, perhaps some aquatic life, then a turtle pond should be considered .

What is Involved with Making a Turtle Pond?

An excellent starting point would be to begin researching what species of turtles will thrive in the area that you live in. It is possible to create a pond for nearly every type of turtle. Even a tortoise, that is considered a "land" turtle will enjoy a shallow pond. The tortoise would most likely not spend the majority of its time swimming in the pond so an adequate amount of land would need to provided for the tortoise. A water turtle like a Red-eared slider will spend the majority of their time swimming in the water, so they would need less land. It would be wise to speak with an associate at a neighborhood pet store or possibly do some research on the internet to determine the right chocies for the species of turtle that will inhabit the mini paradise.

After the selection of the turtle breed is done, the next step would like be the selection of the space or area that you will install the turtle ponds. When creating the pool be sure to make some gradually sloping edges so that the turtles can get in and out of the turtle pond with ease. Rocks or sticks can be used to construct natural looking ramps. Spend some time planning the area for the turtle pond. A well though out design will insure that your turtle pond is the home of happy, healthy turtles. Give thought to the type of liner that will be used. Many breeds of turtles have sharp claws so be sure to select a liner that is thick. The drawback on some of the pre-formed liners is the fact that they have pre-formed shelves or levels which are usually not best suited to turtles. The thinner, more flexible liners can be shaped more easily but are much easier to tear. Look at all the options and make any modifications that will be necessary to make the turtle ponds into a safe environment so that the turtles will thrive in their home.

Protecting The Turtles

It will be important to install fencing around the new turtle ponds. This will prevent any turtles from wandering away, and it will keep any predators out. Remember that turtles are usually small. It is possible that their legs or even their heads could become tangled in the mesh fence. They also dig very well, so frequently check the fencing. Depending on the area, a mesh covering may be needed over the top of the turtle ponds to keeps birds away.

Turtle Ponds and Pond Plants

A really fun part of making turtle ponds is the ability to create a tropical feel. Be careful to select plants that are not toxic. The turtles will likely enjoy a little snacking on the pond plants that are in their new environment. Place some rocks around the edges of turtle ponds to provide the turtles with plenty of opportunity to enjoy a sunny day.

Pet Turtle care: Creating Turtle Ponds

Ponds are an attractive addition to any yard; and appeal to many people. With so many choices of ponds to create, anyone can make their yard a distinctive showplace. For the individual that not only enjoys the elements in a pond; but would like some aquatic life, consider turtle ponds.

What Does It Take To Make Turtle Ponds?

It may be a good place to start by discovering what type of turtle would be best for your turtle ponds area. A pond can be created for any turtle, including the tortoise which is considered more of a "land" turtle; but, they too enjoy shallow water. A tortoise would not spend most of its time in the water; and would need more land space than a water turtle. The Red-eared slider is an aquatic turtle that spends most of their time in the water. There are other breeds of turtles and speaking with a pet store or going on-line to research other breeds will help narrow down the field on the proper choices for the turtle ponds that you wish to create.

After selecting the breed of turtle, the next step is selecting the space to create the turtle ponds. Turtles need to be able to get out of the pool; so, digging out a pool that has some edges and gradually slopes down may work best for the turtle. Ramps, such as sticks or rocks, can also be used as a means to allow the turtle to leave the pool. Turtle ponds need to be well thought out in order for the turtles to thrive. This includes what kind of liner will be used in the pond. As turtles do have sharp claws, some people prefer the pre-fabricated liners that are thick. The shape of these is already set, and many don't have the varying levels for the turtles to climb out of the water. The regular liners are not very thick and can be ripped; but, they can be formed anyway that is desired. Check into both and determine which will work best for the turtle ponds that will be in your yard.

Protecting The Turtles

It is very important to place fencing around the turtle ponds. Not only will this keep the turtles from wandering off, it can keep predators away from the turtles. Keep in mind that turtles are small and their heads and legs can get trapped in the mesh wiring. They can also dig, so check the fencing frequently to prevent runaways. A wiring may be required over the turtle pond as well to keep birds and even raccoons away.

Plants For The Turtle Ponds

Making turtle ponds have a tropical feel is the fun part. Remember, the turtles will probably enjoy snacking on the plants in its new environment, so verify there is nothing dangerous for the turtle. Use rocks around the turtle's pond to give the turtle lots of choices on places to enjoy the sun.

Turtle ponds are a delightful space that will enchant the entire family and neighborhood.

Pet Turtle Care: What Type of Food Do Turtles Eat

What do turtles eat? It depends on the type of turtles, how old they are and where they are located. Generally, turtles are carnivores when they are young. However, they turn into omnivores or herbivores when they grow up and mature, depending on their type.

To answer the question "What do turtles eat?" we'll start by listing the common types of turtles and what they like to eat:

• While River Cooter turtles feed primarily on plants, Map turtles and Malayan Box turtles eat meat and lots of plants.
• American Box turtles feed on anything it gets.
• Meat forms the principle diet of the Chinese 3-Striped Box turtles.
• The Red-Eared Slider turtles end up being omnivores on maturity after starting off eating bugs and worms when they are young.
• Snapping turtles look for small creatures to eat, while most other turtles simply eat plants.
• Most turtles eat shellfish, insects, water plants or fish.
• To ward off predators, turtles often eat poisonous plants like poisonous rhubarb, ivy and avocado found near their habitat.
• Pond turtles in the US eat from a wide list consisting of insects, arthropods, small shellfish, snails, worms and small fish.
• Poisonous plants should not be in a pet turtle's diet as the owner may not know which plants they were acclimatized to in their natural surroundings.
• What pet turtles should eat is good and healthy food. If you bought the turtle from a pet store, they most likely also sell the food that the turtle eats.
• Aquatic turtles eat aquatic aquarium plants, small live fish, dried shrimp and floating turtle pellets found at the pet store.
• Land turtles eat special pellets made for land turtles. While some eat worms, others eat fruits, vegetables, and meal worms.
• Processed foods with high contents of salt and preservatives run a risk of damaging the turtle's digestive system.
• Milk or dairy products can make them sick and should be totally avoided as their stomachs lack the enzyme for breaking down lactose.
• Turtles sometimes eat fruits such as bananas, grapes, mangoes, blueberries, apples, strawberries and other citrus fruits.
• Turtles can also eat chicken, turkey, cooked fish in small quantities, mealworms, boiled eggs, earthworms, silkworms, shrimps, snails and crickets. Raw meat with too much fat can get contaminated and
  should be avoided.
• Domestic turtles eat leafy vegetables like carrot tops, fig leaves, red and green lettuce, corn, green bean and peas, beets, squash, okra and plantain weed.
• Turtles also love to eat flowers like roses, pansies, petunias, borage, geraniums, carnations, hyssop and nasturtium.
• Phosphorus goes with the kind of food preferred by the turtle, but you should take precautions and watch out for the calcium intake and minerals like vitamin D3 in the turtle's diet as they have a direct bearing on its health. Vitamin D3 can be given as a dietary supplement if your turtle is lacking the vitamin. Exposure to sunlight or reptile light also helps in producing it in the turtle's body.

Pet Turtle Care: Useful Tips For a Healthy Diet

When feeding their pet turtle, owners should take advantage of the fact that turtles are omnivorous animals. This means that feeding turtles should be simple and trouble-free, and may become an enjoyable activity for both you and your pet. First of all, you must know the type of turtle that you have; then you can pick the appropriate turtle diet to obtain your pet's optimum health.

Terrestrial or land turtles must be fed 95% vegetables. These include dark green, leafy vegetables, which should comprise the major portion of the vegetables in your turtle's diet. You may also consider feeding your turtle other vegetables such as collard, radish, turnip, and cut grass; offering lesser amounts of spinach, peas, squash, and clover. The remaining 5% of the turtle diet should be made up of fruits.

If you have Box Turtles, feed the young ones with a majority of meat or animal material, such as slugs, snails, earthworms, spiders, grasshoppers, and beetles. As they mature, you can add such plant material as fruits, berries, leafy vegetables, and seeds to your turtle's diet.

Feeding turtles that are aquatic, on the other hand, requires a different variation of food. You may feed the small ones with shrimps in the shell, slugs, chopped earthworms, chopped mice, and floating food sticks that can be purchased at a pet store. As the turtles mature, however, incorporate their diet with green, leafy vegetables like cabbage, kale, broccoli leaves, cut grass, dandelions, and cut weeds.

If you house your turtles in aquariums or ponds, you may place small fish for them to hunt, as the turtles enjoy doing this. But keep in mind that feeding turtles with small fish should only be done once a week to prevent them from growing obese, a condition that is common among the animals.

The right temperature must also be maintained when feeding turtles in indoor enclosures like tanks, or outdoor ones like pens. The correct temperature helps the turtle properly digest the food that they intake, and also keeps them from acquiring diseases.

Some important signs that your turtles have poor or improper nutrition are:

• They are sluggish or lethargic
• They have a milky fluid in their eyes
• Cloudy patches appear as blotches on their skin

Turtles have the tendency to be messy when they eat. It is imperative that you keep a close monitoring of your pet so that any uneaten food, leftovers, or crumbs are cleaned up promptly. This will prevent the growth of bacteria that can, over time, contaminate the turtle and make its housing filthy.

It is also advisable, when feeding your turtle, to use wide, flat rocks as food dishes instead of the commercially manufactured plastic dishes. These flat rocks create a large, abrasive surface for the turtle's food, and the continuous friction during feeding will protect your pet turtle's beak from breaking, and keep its nails and claws from growing too long. You should always provide your turtles with a separate container of fresh, clean water to drink.

Feeding your turtle in the same area and at the same time every day are two sure and proven methods to gain its trust. Be sure to be quiet and calm when you approach your pet, so as not to startle or stress it out. With practice, you may even find your turtle waiting for you at meal times!

Pet Turtle Care: How to Cook Snapping Turtle

Where I grew up in south Louisiana, we saw plenty of snapping turtles, but most of us never thought to eat one. Maybe it's because we were blessed with having so many crawfish around, which were much easier--and less dangerous!--to catch and cook.

Nevertheless, occasionally one of my readers has asked me how to cook a snapping turtle. So, if you happen to find one of these rather nasty looking critters in your fishing net, or have one packed away inside your freezer, here's a great way to prepare it.

By the way, snapping turtle is actually quite delicious!

Assuming you have a live snapper on your hands, the first step, of course, is to kill it. Don some gloves, grab a sharp knife, and cut off the turtle's head as quickly and cleanly as possible. There will be blood, of course, which you should allow to run down the drain of your sink until the flow has slowed considerably.

Now drop the turtle's body, shell and all (except the head, of course) into a big pot of boiling water. Boil for 8 minutes. This is mainly to make cleaning it easier.

Remove the turtle from the pot and allow it to cool sufficiently to be able to handle it. Take your sharp knife and cut away the plastron, or lower shell. Remove the intestines and other organs. Now cut the good stuff, the meat, away from the top shell; be sure to include the legs and tail, which are the best-tasting parts (the skin should come off of these easily after boiling).

You can cook turtle meat, whether from a snapper or some other species, in many different ways. My favorite is this snapping turtle stew:

1. Cut the turtle meat into cubes.

2. Begin browning the meat in a hot frying pan with cooking oil. Add a chopped onion, one or two chopped cloves of garlic and continue cooking until the meat is browned all over.

3. Drain the oil from the frying pan. Remove the meat, onion and garlic and place them in a saucepan (one with a lid). Add 2 cans of tomatoes and 4 sliced or chopped potatoes, some salt and pepper, and enough water to cover everything.

4. Cover the saucepan and cook at a strong simmer for 40 to 50 minutes.

5. Enjoy!

Article Source: Sarah Sandori

Pet Turtle Care: Theft of Turtle Eggs Threaten Sea Turtle Existence

At one time there were several million sea turtles, however the present population has now waned to less than 200,000. These reptiles, whose ancestors evolved on land and returned to the ocean 150 million years ago, the time the dinosaurs roamed this planet, are now heading towards the same extinction. Here in South Florida, the loggerhead population has decreased by 41% since 1998, and they are now under the protection of the Federal Endangered Species Act of 1973. Included in this law is the protection of turtle eggs which when violated is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.

Sea turtles are perfectly adapted to life in the ocean with shells lighter than their land counterparts and the front and rear appendages are flippers which help them to swim fast and for long distances. Surprising to most of us, sea turtles have been clocked swimming up to 35 mph, close to the speed of a racing greyhound. These turtles only need to swim to the surface every few minutes to breathe. At night when they sleep, turtles can stay underwater for two hours without the need to take a breath because turtles have a higher concentration of carbon dioxide, and they are capable of using oxygen more efficiently. Juvenile turtles, however are not able to do that and float above the surface while asleep.

Yesterday, a homeless man, Bruce Wayne Bivens headed to jail after he was arrested for carrying a sack which he threw into the Intercoastal Waterway when he was spotted by the police. In the bag were 119 turtle eggs. A licensed biologist headed to the beach area to rebury 104 of the eggs, and the remaining 15 eggs would be kept for evidence and DNA testing. Turtle eggs are in high demand on the streets worth more than $2.00 each. Poachers use the turtle tracks the females will leave after laying their eggs and returning to the ocean.

The eggs have been advertised on black markets to boost male potency and are usually served raw in a parfait glass. Allegedly the claims that the protein when eaten four times a day will improve a man's sex life creates a huge demand and with ties to organized crime in Mexico, the turtle egg market demand is bursting at the seams. Turtles have also been hunted for their shells and used for jewelry; their skins used for leather goods; meat and eggs used for food and their fat used for oil.

The eggs are also sold with claims they can prevent and cure health problems, however scientific data reports sea turtle eggs very high in cholesterol, little nutritional value and to contain extremely high levels of the toxins cadmium and mercury at rates much higher than what is deemed safe by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Turtle eggs have a two month incubation term with the temperature of the eggs during their incubation influencing the sex of the turtles - male baby turtles often found deeper in the nest with the cooler sand. A group effort has to occur as the baby turtles chip away at their shells with a "egg tooth" - a hard, temporary protuberance on their beaks.

Together it takes all of the hatchlings a day or so to dig their way out of the nest, and they only dig at night stopping their work when the sand temperatures rise and daylight appears. Artificial light from streetlamps and condos has confused many baby turtles often causing their demise. Many are eaten by crabs or get lost on their way to the ocean or once in the water may get eaten by a shark or other carnivorous fish. Statistically only one in a thousand baby turtles survive until adulthood.

As conservationists and responsible stewards of all life, tougher laws and stricter enforcement is needed to bring back a safe population of these ancient creatures. Poachers and hunters need to be held accountable. There needs to be more social marketing and awareness campaigns. It is our job to protect life, and it is our job to guarantee that our children and grandchildren will have the same awe inspiring looks on their faces as we did when we first had the privilege to watch these turtles live exactly as they did 150 million years ago.

Article Source: Cheryl Hanna

Pet Turtle Care: Turtle Mating

Do You Know When, How, and What to Do?

Turtle mating occurs at specific times of year, and under specific conditions. Following are some of the most frequently asked questions regarding turtle mating:

Should I have a separate enclosure for my turtles when they are going to mate?

Yes, if you have either:

• More than one male turtle per female
• Several pairs of mating turtles

One important consideration regarding turtle reproduction is that you should never allow the number of males to outnumber the females, because the males' sexual demands may result in the females' ill health. Male turtles may fight each other over a female. For this reason, the males may become injured if they are allowed to remain in the same enclosure. It is therefore advisable to allow only one mating pair per enclosure.

When is the best time for turtle mating?

Experienced turtle owners have discovered that turtles are more sexually stimulated after hibernation, which usually ends in the late spring. As an owner, you may aid your turtles to "get in the mood" for reproduction by sprinkling their outdoor housing with water using a hose, in order to simulate the rain that normally falls in springtime. The onset of longer days and warmer air temperatures will also stimulate the turtles' desire to mate.

What are the common signs that turtles are ready for mating?

Novice turtle owners may worry if they notice their turtles shoving or butting one another. This is the normal behavior of male turtles prior to reproduction, because they are genetically programmed to fight over the female. Although this behavior is expected prior to mating, it is still your responsibility, as a good turtle owner, to make sure that you separate fighting male turtles before one of them gets badly injured.

How do turtles mate?

It is typical for the male turtle to charge the female turtle when it is about to mount and start mating with her. The male may also make sounds, such as groaning or hissing. The female, however, usually appears completely normal and disinterested, like she is just resting or basking. As the mating process generally takes several hours, the female turtle may have the tendency to get so impatient that she wanders off to a different area to do something else, all the while with the male still attached to her! Many times the attached male will flip over to his back, and be dragged by the female. While a novice owner might feel that the male is being harmed, this is not the case. This is natural behavior for the turtles.

What should I know about my pet turtles regarding laying eggs?

Some novice turtle owners may be surprised to find their newly purchased female turtle is laying eggs without mating. This is due to the fact that female turtles can retain or carry sperm for periods of three or four years post mating. Thus, if you have acquired an adult female turtle, there is a possibility that your pet has already mated prior to your ownership.

What are the common signs that my pet turtle is ready to lay eggs?

The female turtle is often restless and will spend extensive time soaking in water prior to laying her eggs. She may also pace about nervously, and practice making nests. The actual egg-laying process will take several hours to complete.

What should I do to ensure that my pet turtle lays her eggs successfully?

You can help your pet turtle by making sure that her eggs are well-protected. If there are a number of turtles in the area, you should remove and incubate the eggs to keep them from being damaged. (You must never turn these eggs upside down as you remove them, as this may kill the future hatchling. Gently mark the top of the egg with a felt pen before you move them from the nest, so that you are sure to incubate the eggs right-side up. You must also make sure that the turtle has an area for nesting on dry land, so it will not lay its eggs in the water, which can be hazardous for the eggs.

Whether your pets are just in the process of fighting over the females, in the throws of actual turtle mating, or laying their eggs, it is your responsibility to monitor or watch over them to ensure their safety and health.