New member with Gulf box turtle

[Maidenhair59]

Hi everyone,
I am finding tons of valuable information on this forum.
My name is Kathy, I live in Paramus NJ. I have a young female Gulf box turtle, recently obtained from a rescue group. She seems to be doing well, but she only wants to eat earthworms. Initially, she accepted cooked chicken, banana and flower petals dusted with Reptical. She is spending a lot of time in her water bowl.
Any tips would be greatly appreciated. I've had Eastern box turtles, Russian sulcata, Yellow foot, Red foots..never a Florida box turtle. I'm open to suggestions.
Regards,
Kathy

 

[Ink]

Welcome to the forum. Does your turtle have places to hide? What are his temperatures in the enclosure?

 

[Yvonne G]

Welcome to the Forum, Kathy! My grand daughter lives in Hillsborough, NJ and she has a three toe box turtle named Humphrey.

Try cutting up your night crawlers into bite-sized pieces (yeah, I know, I know, YUCK!!!) then mixing the pieces into chopped up fruits and greens to coat the greens with all the worm juice. Another trick is to again cut up the fruits and veg then pour a bit of canned cat food juice into the bowl, mixing it up til all is coated.

Cute little turtle, but she looks like she hasn't had the best care. And she just might be male! Let me see her tail.

 

[Tom]

Hi everyone,
I am finding tons of valuable information on this forum.
My name is Kathy, I live in Paramus NJ. I have a young female Gulf box turtle, recently obtained from a rescue group. She seems to be doing well, but she only wants to eat earthworms. Initially, she accepted cooked chicken, banana and flower petals dusted with Reptical. She is spending a lot of time in her water bowl.
Any tips would be greatly appreciated. I've had Eastern box turtles, Russian sulcata, Yellow foot, Red foots..never a Florida box turtle. I'm open to suggestions.
Regards,
Kathy

I raised one of these years ago. Super cool species. One of the tips I got here was to make the water area much larger. Instead of just having a water dish like we would for a tortoise, I put in a big shallow water pan, and Millie loved it.

Also, it looks like you've got sand mixed into the substrate? If yes, that is not good. Sand is a skin and eye irritant and it can cause impaction. There is a lot of old outdated and incorrect care info out in the world. Sand and soil is part of that.

Millie was picky too. She'd eat roaches (I breed them for other reptile species to eat...) and earthworms with no problem, but I had a tough time getting her switched on to other foods. Yvonne's cat food trick worked well for me. I started mixing up all sorts of good stuff, chopping it all up into a gruel and saving it in an ice cube tray in the freezer. I'd defrost a cube a day, and this got her eating more variety more regularly, but she still loved her roaches. I think the freezing broke down the cell walls of the fruits, veggies, meat and worms, and concealed it all into a nutritious box turtle mush that was still palatable.

 

[jeff kushner]

WTTC K.....
Sorry to hear about that Jersey thing but you sure have a little cutie...we need the little guys name though???

I never had one of those but you just got some of the best advice from a couple of talented folks...trust me, they know this stuff!

Best of luck
Jeff

BTW my EBT, Matilda told me to tell you- Toss a piece of lean cooked beef in there. Apply steak seasoning if you want to see her really attack it.