Baby Bonanza!

[thea lester]

Sophia, Juanita & Salvador made FIVE baby three toed boxies. I am shocked and overwhelmed Turtle nxt to quarter found 9/18. Turtles with nickel found this afternoon!
Holy guacamole am I astounded

 

[bouaboua]

Congrats!!!!!

 

[russian/sulcata/tortoise]

congrats on your baby box turtles!

 

[thea lester]

Thank you thank you! Temporary indoor nursuries are all set up, not entirely sure how to handle this herd of turtles tonight, but safe and secure and separate and temporarily indoors.
Please any and all advice welcome.

 

[Moozillion]

WOO HOO!!! Congratulations!!!!

I notice you're in New Orleans- I'm right across the Lake in Covington! I had a friend who is a middle school teacher (teaches Science) in Madisonville. One of her students brought her 3 tiny box turtle hatchings the same size as yours from her yard. She got special permission from her principal to keep live animals in her classroom, and kept all 3 babies at school. There were together in a little (10 gal?) aquarium with a wide, shallow water dish that they could easily get into and out of. The water was never above their heads. There was another shallow dish for the food. The rest of the enclosure was soft, deep substrate that she misted daily to keep moist. She had several live plants in there too- it was hard to see the babies because of the plants! But the little turtles loved it. She had a thermo-hygrometer in it to keep an eye on humidity, and covered about 3/4 of the tank top with plastic wrap to keep the humidity up. And she had heat and UV light sources too. She kept joking that PetSmart loves her!

I keep saying "she" but actually she made the box turtle "parenting" into an ongoing science project for her 8th grade students, and the kids LOVED IT!!! They were all over the Internet, researching daily. I referred her to this forum but did not see her here. She also consulted me from time to time to check on conflicting info off the 'Net. The kids argued with each other about whose turn it was to clean and change the water dish each day! They could really see the babies' personalities develop: one stayed buried almost ALL the time, and probably only came out to eat at night, since she grew just fine. One was much bolder and often soaking where the kids could watch him. Another liked to hide, half-buried, among the plants. Several kids wanted to come feed them over the weekend. All 3 babies grew and thrived over the winter and the students were super-involved. My friend released them into a marshy area once Spring was settled in.

 

[N2TORTS]

Woo Hoo ....all righty then ....niceeee....~

gotta luv them Cajun roots~

 

[thea lester]

Thanks Y'all! Love that story Moozillion, so glad to hear about kids learning about nature and nurture. I learned about those things way back when with my dear old Sophie mama turtle when I was 7. She's such a trooper.

 

[Torch]

You should be able to house them together for quite some time before you will need to worry about a permanent enclosure. Babies don't need tons of space

 

[lismar79]

You can send me one

 

[thea lester]

My only concern in keeping them together is about them biting eachother...
They're so darn little though, whadda y'all think?