![]() ![]() They are ectothermic reptiles which means they rely on their environment to regulate their body temperature. These turtles generally prefer warmer waters with lots of plants and rocks for them to hide under. The natural habitat temperature for a red-eared slider turtle is between 75☏ and 85☏ (23.9☌ – 29.4☌). The natural habitat of red-eared slider turtles is usually ponds, slow-moving rivers, lakes, and marshes. In this article, we’ll provide step-by-step instructions on how to create the perfect home for your red-eared slider turtle. Proper housing is essential for any pet, but it’s especially important for turtles since they require specific environmental conditions to stay healthy.įortunately, setting up a tank for your new pet doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. If you’ve recently adopted a red-eared slider turtle, you may be wondering how to best set up its housing. ![]() We choose to buy one big tank instead of a increasing tank sizes every year as he grows.Turtles are becoming increasingly popular as pets, and the red-eared slider turtle is one of the most common varieties. Now he lives with us since 10 years in a bathtub sized tank. We found him on the street too, but in our area he would not survive in the nature. The turtle would choose the place according to these criteria. And the place has to be near the water, so the young turtles could reach it easily. You could test the soil: if you dig a hole with a spoon and the walls don't collapse into the hole, then the soil is right. If the turtle really wants to lay eggs, she needs water to wet the ground where she may lay their eggs. Maybe you saw this? You wrote nothing about water. ![]() They turn around and make swimming like moves to get dirt over their back. you need a fenceįor the behavior that you discribe: turtles dig a whole to hide in it, if they cannot find water to do so. Search on YouTube for it, it is unbelieveable. If you think about a pond in your garden, you need a fence around it. To live a good life they need a water depth between one and two times their shell length and if it is a tank it has to be 7 times as long and at a minimum 2 times as wide as their shell (so the turtle could turn around comfortably). Male ones becomes only a hand width shorter. The shell of female red eared sliders becomes the size of a toilet seat. Only for mating do they change location and could go for miles to find the right partner. They feel safe there and stay close to their "pond". Your reasoning for taking care of the turtle is a good one.īut you should be aware of some facts about red eared sliders:įirst: they live their whole live in water. Is it feasible to keep this turtle as a pet, or should we just release it? As far as I can tell, it doesn't seem stressed out and seems calm enough when one of us handles it.What can we do to help/encourage this turtle to lay its eggs?.She seems a lot happier trying to dig in the middle of the lawn however, our soil is quite firm and I'm not sure if she will be able to dig a good enough hole there. Over the past couple of days, I have put her in the box and left her for an hour and a half several times, but I haven't seen any sign of her trying to dig into the soil. So, going by a video on YouTube, I have tried to make a nesting box for it out of a cardboard box that I have filled with soil. I did some reading online and I understand that if it has eggs then it needs to lay them, otherwise it can be bad for its health. So, it appears to be a female that is trying to lay eggs. However, it has clearly been in the wild for at least some time, as it seems to have a busted right eye and the back portion of its shell looks like something has tried to chew on it.Īnyway, a couple of days ago I saw it trying to dig a hole in the lawn with its claws. ![]() It is possible it may have been someone else's pet in the past, which escaped or was released. We don't have any experience of keeping turtles as pets however, we are aware that this species is very commonly kept as a pet. So, I thought we might be doing the local ecosystem a favor by taking it in. Secondly, I looked online and identified it as a Red Eared Slider, which is apparently an invasive species in our area. We took it in and are considering keeping it as a pet for the following reasons:įirstly, we live in a suburban area of Massachusetts and there are quite a lot of roads where we live, so it doesn't seem like the safest area for a turtle to be wandering around in. My family and I found a turtle crossing our street a few days ago. ![]()
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