Clueless!!

[Kara]

Hi, everyone!

My name is Kara. My husband rescued a box turtle from the neighbors yard yesterday. I assumed someone would be looking for their (or their child's) pet!
Silly me.

Leonardo 'Leo' will be my guest for a while so I need some guidance. I spent hours on internet research before I found ya'll. The conflicting opinions made my head hurt and left me more confused. Your forum seems to be the most practical as well as knowledgeable so here I am. I am confident Leo has spent his whole life as someone's pet so 'returning' him to the wild is not an option. Obviously, I'd like to keep him happy and healthy while I look for his 'forever' home. I can't afford to spend hundreds of dollars on him, though.

I am attaching some pictures so you can help me with identification including sex.

If he wants to hibernate, how do I go about keeping him 'awake'? As you can see from the pictures, someone painted his shell pink and then added glitter. I'd like to clean it off, but no idea how to go about it. Need some practical advice as to basic care, as well. You can see he's not impressed with his current set up.

 

[wellington]

Hello and Welcome. If the original owners are found, please don't give the turtle back. Obviously, the parents arent teaching someone proper animal care and respect.

 

[Kara]

Hello and Welcome. If the original owners are found, please don't give the turtle back. Obviously, the parents are. It teaching someone proper animal care and respect.

I couldn't have said it better! My husband wants to put up 'Found' posters, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I am hopeful I can find him a good home.

 

[Grandpa Turtle 144]

Hello Kara welcome to the TFO
It looks like red paint and the sparkles
Are on with clear paint but I cannt tell by the picture if it's water base or not
So some else will have to help with the paint but what I see is all turtles , torts ,and boxy 's have one thing in comen
If they can see out ? They want out!
So you may want put some cardboard
Around the out side of your wire pen

 

[guille24]

Don't give it back to the original owners please ! Some Of the experts are going to help you and give you all the info you need to keep that box turtle happy .

 

[wellington]

Where are you located and what are your temps now, day and night? I agree on putting something around the bottom portion of the pen so he can't see out. It will help him settle in better too. Also, give him a hide to sleep in. A cardboard box can be used for this, turned upside down and a hole cut into it for a door. Some plain dirt could be placed in the enclosure for hi to burrow into. Just be sure it is free of pesticides and fertilizers. I'm not sure the exact species of box turtle it is, someone will be able to help on that and more info. Also have a low sided water dish available 24/7.

 

[Kara]

The burbs west of St Louis. Looks like lows in the forties overnight with high temps in the 70s until Wednesday when the high will be in the 60s. The water dish is the only thing we got (almost) right. It's the plastic top to a cake pan; will replace it with a planter tray/ dish tomorrow per Tom's 'Beginner Mistakes' thread. Will also get a thermometer as soon as I return the $100 worth of garbage the kid at Petsmart sold me today!

 

[wellington]

Those are too low of temps to not provide heat. Are you housing him inside your house? If so, buy one ceramic heat emitter and a dome light fixture with a ceramic socket, cheaper at Home Depot. Also get a fluorescent UVB bulb, not the coil type and you can buy a fixture for it also at a Home Depot or hardware store, menards, etc, also cheaper. Also use some kind of ruff flat stone, or tile for a food plate. It will help keep his beak and nails filed down. If you don't want to use dirt, you can get coconut coir or cypress mulch.

 

[Kara]

Set up the basking bulb today. Will post pictures after I 'renovate' tomorrow.

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Kara, and welcome to the Forum!!

Leo is a female three toed box turtle (Terrapene carolina triunguis). Other than her decorations, she looks pretty healthy and alert...no long toenails or over-grown beak. My guess is that she's been housed outside (where she should be), and taken pretty good care of.

My experience with painted shells isn't very vast, but my guess is that you'll have to let it wear off naturally. There really isn't anything you can use to soften the paint and get it off. If this were my turtle, I would try a tiny bit of nail polish remover on a very small section and see if that does the trick. I wouldn't try to do the whole shell at once, but a tiny section each day might not cause any harm to the turtle.

 

[Tom]

Kara, I mean no disrespect, but please explain why it is that your husband "rescued" this turtle from someone else's property. I agree with Yvonne's assessment that it looks quite bright eyed and healthy. Neglected or abused animals don't look like that. I agree the shell painting by an over-zealous affectionate child is not a good thing, but I put racing number stickers on my box turtle as a child to help me find him when he disappeared in the yard. Some people would certainly not have approved of that either, yet it did not harm the turtle. What I see in your pics is a turtle being housed on concrete, above ground, with no cover or hiding spots, with cold night temps, near a gas can and resulting fumes. I realize you are trying to do the "right" thing, and I commend you for coming here and asking for help, but from the little bit we can see, it looks like that turtle was doing just fine where it was. Is there more to the story? Did you see some sort of abuse taking place? Will you be moving the turtle to a more suitable location with correct housing soon? Can you fill us in on why this turtle needed to be "rescued"?

 

[Yvonne G]

...and if you DO find the owner, if it is indeed your neighbor, this is a great learning experience for the kid about not painting turtles' shells.

 

[lkwagner]

Hello and Welcome. If the original owners are found, please don't give the turtle back. Obviously, the parents arent teaching someone proper animal care and respect.

I was going to say the exact same thing lol

 

[ascott]

Kara, I mean no disrespect, but please explain why it is that your husband "rescued" this turtle from someone else's property. I agree with Yvonne's assessment that it looks quite bright eyed and healthy. Neglected or abused animals don't look like that. I agree the shell painting by an over-zealous affectionate child is not a good thing, but I put racing number stickers on my box turtle as a child to help me find him when he disappeared in the yard. Some people would certainly not have approved of that either, yet it did not harm the turtle. What I see in your pics is a turtle being housed on concrete, above ground, with no cover or hiding spots, with cold night temps, near a gas can and resulting fumes. I realize you are trying to do the "right" thing, and I commend you for coming here and asking for help, but from the little bit we can see, it looks like that turtle was doing just fine where it was. Is there more to the story? Did you see some sort of abuse taking place? Will you be moving the turtle to a more suitable location with correct housing soon? Can you fill us in on why this turtle needed to be "rescued"?

...and if you DO find the owner, if it is indeed your neighbor, this is a great learning experience for the kid about not painting turtles' shells.

On the bleachers here with Yvonne and Tom ....I also understand first impulse is to help, which is what I believe you did and that should not go un recognized...I would however place a found sign or two around town saying turtle found without any descriptive info about the "bedazzled" shell or such and let someone call to id...after a couple weeks or so if zip...then you have yourself a turtle that will need an actual home....heat/lights/substrate/food/exercise/consideration taken in for brumation and all of the things that come with hosting a turtle like this....that is a beauty for sure...and to me, it kinda looks like nail polish and then glitter nail polish over that----something that females do

 

[Tom]

Can someone help me understand? Why are we talking about finding the owner or putting up lost signs? She knows who the owner is. Her husband took the turtle out of the neighbors yard yesterday. Second sentence of the OP. The people might not realize their turtle is gone yet, but we know where it came from and who the owner is.

 

[Yvonne G]

My impression when reading the first post was that the turtle had wandered into the neighbor's yard and the husband picked it up. I didn't get the impression that it was taken from the fenced in yard. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Kara]

Kara, I mean no disrespect, but please explain why it is that your husband "rescued" this turtle from someone else's property. I agree with Yvonne's assessment that it looks quite bright eyed and healthy. Neglected or abused animals don't look like that. I agree the shell painting by an over-zealous affectionate child is not a good thing, but I put racing number stickers on my box turtle as a child to help me find him when he disappeared in the yard. Some people would certainly not have approved of that either, yet it did not harm the turtle. What I see in your pics is a turtle being housed on concrete, above ground, with no cover or hiding spots, with cold night temps, near a gas can and resulting fumes. I realize you are trying to do the "right" thing, and I commend you for coming here and asking for help, but from the little bit we can see, it looks like that turtle was doing just fine where it was. Is there more to the story? Did you see some sort of abuse taking place? Will you be moving the turtle to a more suitable location with correct housing soon? Can you fill us in on why this turtle needed to be "rescued"?

Our next door neighbor spotted LeA (Thanks, Yvonne!) in her back yard, moving pretty fast! Recent surgery made it impossible for our neighbor to stop Lea's progress toward the street so she called my husband. After putting her in the best secure enclosure available to us, my husband knocked on doors to locate her owner. Although the paint seemed ill-advised, we assumed someone would be along shortly to locate what was obviously a pet. My husband also knocked on the doors of all the neighbors who share a fence line with our next door neighbor. Yesterday, once it got warm enough, I set her stuff up on the grass in the front yard so she could get some sun. Since Saturday, we have spoken with every person we have seen, in a continued attempt to locate the owner.

I plan keep her for a few more days in case the owner was out of town or whatever. What do you think about 'Found' posters? I could get a picture that excludes the pink paint and use it to verify ownership.

 

[Kara]

YES, Yvonne! Thank you for your confidence in my common sense, not to mention common COURTESY!

 

[Kara]

Thank you, Angela!

 

[Kara]

My impression when reading the first post was that the turtle had wandered into the neighbor's yard and the husband picked it up. I didn't get the impression that it was taken from the fenced in yard. Maybe I'm wrong.

Unrelated to Lea's immediate well-being, I am just curious as to HOW she came to be in the yard. We can't find a missing/ mangled section of fence she could have walked through nor any evidence of 'tunneling.' Thoughts?