Serious bullying

[cmacusa3]

Today on my tort cams I witnessed my 3 toed hatchlings fighting one another over food. It was extremely bad, biting in the face and on the legs, chasing one another around the enclosure when one would have food in it's mouth. I'm going home at lunch to separate the 5 of them. I'm going to put each one of them in dish washing tubs until I can figure out the best way to set them up. This is a true reminder that these are solitary creatures. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Yvonne G]

If you keep them well fed, you can keep baby box turtles together. I've seen them to bite off tails and feet of other babies, but when you keep lots of food in with them it seems ok.

 

[cmacusa3]

I feed every day, and with a lot of food. Crickets, Dubia, greens, Mazuri, fruit, etc...

 

[ascott]

Today on my tort cams I witnessed my 3 toed hatchlings fighting one another over food. It was extremely bad, biting in the face and on the legs, chasing one another around the enclosure when one would have food in it's mouth. I'm going home at lunch to separate the 5 of them. I'm going to put each one of them in dish washing tubs until I can figure out the best way to set them up. This is a true reminder that these are solitary creatures. Any advice would be appreciated.

Perhaps you have turtles of the same sex...so some additional dominance is going on....have you witnessed this behavior before, or was this the first time? Did it appear that any were hurt? Do you feed at only one or two feeding locations for the 5 of them? Keep in mind that I am only throwing out questions that first came to mind....I do not host this type...but the questions are not tricky to any species anyways....

 

[cmacusa3]

This is the first I've seen it happen, and I feed at one location with a lot of food.

They didn't appear hurt but I'm not home to check them. It was very aggressive behavior..... I get the motion alerts on my phone, I will try to upload a video.

 

[Yvonne G]

As Ascott has suggested, you can place three or four different feeding stations in the habitat and set a turtle in front of each one.

 

[cmacusa3]

I will give that a try

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Again, I am not au fait with this species, but it's clear that if they don't stop, they will have to be separated before any serious harm is done.
As you know I've been following your threads and would hate harm to come to these wonderful little guys and I love your remote camera/ alert system too.
Here's an example of how useful this tech can be.

 

[cmacusa3]

Trust me I don't want anything to happen either. I will post a small part of what I watched on YouTube when I can hack my sons account.

 

[cmacusa3]

This will be the basic setup for them. I'm going to put a top on the box, with the 4' tube light I have. each individual tub will be just like the enclosure they live in now.

I would feel better separating them.

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Trust me I don't want anything to happen either. I will post a small part of what I watched on YouTube when I can hack my sons account.

I'm sorry, I never meant to suggest otherwise.
I know how much you care, that is blindingly obvious.
Would like to see the vid, out of curiosity, but know it will make me sad.

 

[cmacusa3]

I know you didn't mean anything by that. Here's the video, this went on for a little while.

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Naughty little blighters!
Asserting their dominance at such a young age.
It's a good example of what we often don't see and why, usually, torts and turtles shouldn't have company.( with a few exceptions )
'Oh but my torts are friends'.
Yeah, right.

 

[cmacusa3]

search hatchlings fighting on youtube if the above doesn't work.

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

search hatchlings fighting on youtube if the above doesn't work.

No, it worked fine, thanks.
The one that seemed to start it got chased away by the defender.
It's quite sweet, in a strange sort of way.

 

[cmacusa3]

2 more got involved later

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

'Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!'
Perhaps they were just trying to hold the first two back!

 

[cmacusa3]

Each has a new home, one stayed in the old enclosure and the other 4 move here.

 

[leigti]

Wow, that was scary. Even though I think having several food stations would help I would probably end up separating them also after seeing that. I hope none of them were actually injured.

 

[kathyth]

Your solution is beyond perfect!!
Problem solved!