Backyard Terrapins
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Hi All I’m new to this group and joined mainly in hopes of learning about a couple of wild Terrapins that calls my backyard home..I had my backyard privacy fenced about 10 yrs ago, or more, and one of my 2 Terrapins (Terrapin #1) was apparently trapped in the yard at that time_The other(Terrapin #2) I rescued from along side a road_It showed signs of having been hit by a passing vehicle at one time_.The Terrapins disappear about this time every fall with the coming of cool weather, and reappear every spring with mild warm weather _Terrapin #1 has been doing this for many yrs and Terrapin #2 seems to be doing the same_I assume they are hibernating ???_.All I have ever seen them eating is the tomatoes I grow in my garden until the last couple days_Recently, I noticed one eating a few pieces of dry dog food, left uneaten by our dog. We have a sun room attached to our house that we winter plants in_.I keep the temperature in the sun room in the 50 to 60 degree range during the winter months_.I have noticed both Terrapins crawling around in the sun room recently and have been wondering if they might not winter better in the sun room than in the winter cold hibernated outside_.If I should choose to do this, what would I feed them????.. Just curious. Any suggestions would be appreciated concerning the basic care of my backyard Terrapins Thanks Hermit
Hello there, first off, so we can better help you, if you live in the US the turtles you are referring to are probably box turtles and not diamondback terrapins which are aquatic turtles that live in brackish marsh habitats. The various names for turtles can get confusing so it is very understandable. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but from your description that would be my best guess. Do an image search on diamondback terrapins & box turtles or look at the photos section on our yahoo group page. We can help you figure out what you have and therefore give you the right advice. Do you have any pictures of them? What area do you live in? If you do in fact have a land turtle (tortoise), it will do best hibernating naturally as long as your yard provides the proper soil/mulch/ leaf litter to allow them to do it properly. If they have been going about things this way in the past, I would let them continue. Unfortunately you are in a tough spot because the turtles are semi-wild at this point. If they are trapped in your yard you are responsible to provide them with the proper food/water/shelter since they cannot travel and may not always be able find necessary food sources in your yard. You just have to decide if you want to keep them as pets or treat them as wild creature in which case you might want to release them into a nearby safe habitat where they can move about naturally. It’s up to you but if they are captive they ultimately rely on you to give them care, in which case we can forward you more information on how to best do that.-Scott —– Original Message —-From: hermitr3
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