Rand
New Member
(I just realized how long this is. Sorry. tl;dr -- we have a new Ornate Box Turtle, our first reptile)
Hi, I'm Rand, from Amarillo, Texas. A couple of months ago i took a turtle away from my dogs in the back yard. and it's been here ever since. In over 30 years here we've never seen or even heard of turtles in the city from friends and acquaintances. We've actually had rabbits, roadrunners, horned lizards (horny-toads), a chicken, and still have have toads hanging around. First turtle.
I immediately started trying to find him a safe home (our dogs are friendly, but there are a lot of big "guard" dogs in the neighborhood. First thing I did was contact the only wildlife center in the area, where we had taken an injured bird in the past, but when I finally got in touch with them they said they didn't deal with reptiles and didn't know where I could go next. The Animal Shelter/ASPCA deals in various mammals. City Animal Control & Welfare was puzzled. I finally got a line on a purported reptile refuge, but to this day nobody has answered the line listed. Google had an address, but the street addresses on the left and right were a Fazoli's and a Dairy Queen. Oddly, all the map/satellite sites pinpointed the address as a location a mile away from that Dairy Queen in the middle of a lonely prairie without any sign of a building, driveway, or even a road, dirt or other. And that prairie is right next to the wildlife center.
So we stashed it in a large storage bin and got to researching. We now know it's an Ornate Box, he's a he (green head, beautiful red eyes), and it appears to be legal for us to have him -- it requires a hunting license to "collect" box turtles in Texas, but's OK to own them as only Texas Box Turtles and marine turtles are are protected.
I've started a large outdoor enclosure. It was too hot lately to leave him there during the day (up to near 100 and near-drought) and too cool at night (60's) so he's been in and out as the temperature allows as I work on a suitable indoor enclosure (24x40, two story). Suddenly we're 60's day and 30's and even 20's nights coming up, so the poor guy is going to have to spend a little while longer cooped up. We do let him roam around the shower.
So we came to have an Ornate Box in the family. I'm undoubtedly going to want and need guidance and experience and moral support. Let the fun begin!
Hi, I'm Rand, from Amarillo, Texas. A couple of months ago i took a turtle away from my dogs in the back yard. and it's been here ever since. In over 30 years here we've never seen or even heard of turtles in the city from friends and acquaintances. We've actually had rabbits, roadrunners, horned lizards (horny-toads), a chicken, and still have have toads hanging around. First turtle.
I immediately started trying to find him a safe home (our dogs are friendly, but there are a lot of big "guard" dogs in the neighborhood. First thing I did was contact the only wildlife center in the area, where we had taken an injured bird in the past, but when I finally got in touch with them they said they didn't deal with reptiles and didn't know where I could go next. The Animal Shelter/ASPCA deals in various mammals. City Animal Control & Welfare was puzzled. I finally got a line on a purported reptile refuge, but to this day nobody has answered the line listed. Google had an address, but the street addresses on the left and right were a Fazoli's and a Dairy Queen. Oddly, all the map/satellite sites pinpointed the address as a location a mile away from that Dairy Queen in the middle of a lonely prairie without any sign of a building, driveway, or even a road, dirt or other. And that prairie is right next to the wildlife center.
So we stashed it in a large storage bin and got to researching. We now know it's an Ornate Box, he's a he (green head, beautiful red eyes), and it appears to be legal for us to have him -- it requires a hunting license to "collect" box turtles in Texas, but's OK to own them as only Texas Box Turtles and marine turtles are are protected.
I've started a large outdoor enclosure. It was too hot lately to leave him there during the day (up to near 100 and near-drought) and too cool at night (60's) so he's been in and out as the temperature allows as I work on a suitable indoor enclosure (24x40, two story). Suddenly we're 60's day and 30's and even 20's nights coming up, so the poor guy is going to have to spend a little while longer cooped up. We do let him roam around the shower.
So we came to have an Ornate Box in the family. I'm undoubtedly going to want and need guidance and experience and moral support. Let the fun begin!
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