How many days of "fasting" prior shipping an adult box turtle

[Box turtle]

Hello everyone,

I will be shipping a couple of my adult 3 toed box turtles overnight and I want to know how many days do they need to fast prior shipping.

I live in Hawaii and weather is pretty warm, therefore they are very active and I feed them usually 3-4 times a week.

Thank you

 

[Markw84]

I don't fast turtles or tortoises prior to shipping. With tortoises, I give them a nice long warm soak which encourages pooping and normally they will not mess during transit. With turtles, I do ship prior to feeding for the day, so there is no "new" food in the gut.

The gut transit time in a tortoise averages about 7 days, so I do not try to empty their gut, just get the stuff that's ready to go!

I would imagine turtles with a higher protein, lower fiber diet would have shorter gut transit times. Probably in the 3 day range. I don't worry about trying to empty their gut, though for shipping. In a totally dark container, they are pretty inactive during shipping. There is some mess in the container quite often, but they are all individually packed in their own container. Most all shippers have climate controlled facilities and planes. So boxes are normallly kept in the 70°s. The only variable is time in the truck to and from airports. If you ship to deliver, instead of pick up at nearest facility, there is the time in the delivery truck that is most at risk - so I Drop off at my nearest facility myself and ship "hold at facility for pick up" as much as possible. So transit times within the US are usually less than a total of 15 hours. Relatively cool temps and totally dark - not a problem.

 

[Box turtle]

I don't fast turtles or tortoises prior to shipping. With tortoises, I give them a nice long warm soak which encourages pooping and normally they will not mess during transit. With turtles, I do ship prior to feeding for the day, so there is no "new" food in the gut.

The gut transit time in a tortoise averages about 7 days, so I do not try to empty their gut, just get the stuff that's ready to go!

I would imagine turtles with a higher protein, lower fiber diet would have shorter gut transit times. Probably in the 3 day range. I don't worry about trying to empty their gut, though for shipping. In a totally dark container, they are pretty inactive during shipping. There is some mess in the container quite often, but they are all individually packed in their own container. Most all shippers have climate controlled facilities and planes. So boxes are normallly kept in the 70°s. The only variable is time in the truck to and from airports. If you ship to deliver, instead of pick up at nearest facility, there is the time in the delivery truck that is most at risk - so I Drop off at my nearest facility myself and ship "hold at facility for pick up" as much as possible. So transit times within the US are usually less than a total of 15 hours. Relatively cool temps and totally dark - not a problem.

Thank you so much for your reply,

I am dropping and picking up at the facilities also due to the reasons you mentioned .