Recent content by wendigo

Thanks for sharing. What a heartbreaking journey. Glad you’ve had some success, losing that group of 5 must have been awful.

The only water turtle experience I have is with African helmeted (Pelomedusa subrufa) and I’m smitten. He’s super interactive, always starving, and very entertaining.

Thank you! I am noticing the days after he gets tilapia he's not as starving. I'll just keep feeding him as we are and see how he does. Appreciate your insights!

Yes, pet store said African sideneck and he was identified here as an African helmeted turtle, Pelomedusa subrufa. He has so much personality and takes food from your fingers (and sometimes your fingers too) like a little crocodile.

We’ve had Lazarus for 6 weeks now and have been feeding once or twice a day, until he/she is less enthusiastic. He gets tilapia, shrimp, earthworms and crickets. He is not a fan of pellets. How do I tell if he’s getting too much? Here’s his weights: 4/23/23 172 g 5/20/23 190 g 6/4/23 201 g I...

Thank you. I know we probably have 5+ years before the intro to mom (she’s 10 lbs) so I think for right now I’m going to separate them. Then we can look into getting 1-2 more yearlings and try then as a group after quarantine. I actually just built them a 6x2 enclosure for the screened porch...

Does this hold true for redfoots as well? I ended up with 2 baby redfoots (not by choice, we had one out of a group of eggs hatch, then found a ground hatch, Mom came to us gravid). I thought they were fine, and both are growing like crazy, but when I read your post I thought “crap, that’s...

I got her from Rodriguez Chelonians. I know theres no guarantee on sex. I'm glad to hear she shouldn't be perfectly smooth, I was starting to worry that I wasn't doing something right.

That was my gut feeling, that one is better. Thanks for confirming.

So I recently introduced Lazarus, the African Helmeted turtle we got from Petsmart. Thanks for the species id and care suggestions. I am stupidly head over heels for this turtle. I have other reptiles, tortoises, lizards and snakes - but something about his little crazy face and bottomless pit...

Stella is my 2 yr old Burmese star, who was temp incubated for female. I've noticed in the past 6 months or so she's pyramiding a little and I haven't changed anything with her diet or enclosure. She's in a closed chamber with minimum 80% humidity. She get greens, weeds, hibiscus daily and...

We felt guilty about removing him from the outdoor pond which he seems to love, so we have another above ground outdoor pond coming just for him. We will take it apart every winter and move him inside until the spring. After watching his behaviors with the plants and the island and basking in...

So it's looking more and more like Lazarus has eaten all the fish that went missing in the pond (two 8" shubunkins, two 6-8" dojo loaches) . We had barriers and cameras up, saw no raccoon activity, and our huge dojo loach was gone this morning :( So we're thinking instead of having Lazarus in...

We got him 6 guppies and discovered that he likes crickets. He was also hugely impressed with the shrimp he got for dinner last night. Over night I had a ton of invasive Cuban tree frogs spawning in the pond. I’ve been trying to catch and euthanize them but it’s hard to keep up. This morning...

Thanks for the tip! Next time I make shrimp he'll get some. I read through this study and seems like I don't really need to worry about plant material, just keep up a variety of prey items...