imo, access to the natural ground is important....... where i live we get negative fahrenheit temperatures regularly, without access to the ground everything would die......
lack of enforcement doesn't make it legal ..... you will find very few states where wild caught native wildlife can be kept..... anything that can be will require a permit ......
cttc is a nonprofit public benefit corporation, approved by the government??? you most likely can download an...
the winter ground temperatures are what matters, does your ground freeze? the hottest places in the united states get below freezing........ i'm pretty sure desert tortoises naturally come from colder climates that bakersfield........
captive born is not wild, best i can tell is Lavender is speaking about wild caught animals..... the only turtles/tortoises native to california are western pond turtles and desert tortoises, you'll need a permit for either, i think you may not even be able to get a permit for a western pond...
i've had outside turtles over the years get respiratory infections, i never liked bringing them in due to the stress, my turtles are bordeline wild turtles....... i've found it helpful to give them an added nightime and cold weather heat source.... a second round of ceftazidime may work...
in order to keep them you need to take them...... i believe there are 3 states where you can still take eastern box turtles , you can keep like 2, they can't leave the state, for sure that practice is destined to come to a bad ending in the near future.... imo, any turtle species that can be...
my opinion would be to stop moving him around/taking him in at night, let him or you make him a burrow at night and you figure out how to keep predators out.......how was he brumated? what was the testing for?? he may need baytril if ceftazidime didn't work.........
in nature temperature fluctuations are predictable........ i'm pretty sure they can see heat, if not they're really good guessers.....
my wood turtle enclosures has a lot of shade throughout the day, when i go look for them i just look where the sun is, different places throughout the day and...
they're creatures of habit, i'm not sure changing their enclosure would be enrichment, it might be more like stressful, i guess even stress is some kind of mental enrichment? encouraging natural behaviors is what i think is enrichment..... give him a small second floor, put water up there ...
while room is always best, tortoises and turtles are not "roaming" animals , they move no further than they have to, it depends on the resources available...... in the wild some lifelong home ranges are no more than a half of a football field... they can move a couple hundred feet a day maybe...
to bad, snow cover is an excellent insulator, you must be a bit too south of the lake ....... i get winters with almost no snow cover to winters where we're buried in snow, either way it's not a problem, snow cover just makes it less of "not a problem"...... it all takes planning ...
your climate is very similar to mine, 6a and 6b intermingled........ you might get more snow than me, which is a good thing for ground temperatures........ i've never had a problem leaving eastern box turtles outdoors 24/7/365 in my climate........ i don't doubt a 3-toed would do fine, but...
are you sure you are 6b? a 6b climate should be no problem keeping properly set up eastern box turtles, ornate box turtles or russian tortoises outdoors 24/7/365