? for people smarter than me(yeah, you're in that group)

jeff kushner

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While I'm positive this is covered in the reference section, I'm always curious of "real world" experiences. Besides, folks like telling others how they've accomplished a certain goal, it's part of the fun of life.

Anyway I have been trying to encourage Matilda to seek out and search for food in her home when hungry. Since I cannot communicate with her, my only method is to withhold food.

Then it dawned on me...duh, "what exactly is she looking for in her newly constructed home?" We all know the deal, her new home has newly planted grass/plants & new water supply.....there is no biosphere going on in there yet...if she even found a bug, she'd be lucky...lol. So yesterday I brought up probably 30 worms from her basement cooler and let them go in the plants her home. I have enriched the soil to ensure plant growth so they might like it. I have a couple hundred more to go in but before I "shot my wad" so to speak, I wanted to ask you guys, how to do you get a continuous food supply going? A complete ecosystem?

I've seen some really remarkable enclosures and after seeing them. Well, I get paid to guess for a living and my guess is those keepers are not doing "feedings" very often, probably more as "supplemental"

thanks guys...
 

Yvonne G

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To encourage a turtle to forage, instead of putting his food out in a pile in one spot you can put dribs and dabs of food around the enclosure and make him hunt for it.
 

jeff kushner

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Yes, that's a good idea to get her comfortable with her surroundings. I'd like to figure out a food supply chain that did not include me though, not b/c I don't want to feed her but she's a turtle, not a tamed pet so I think finding food for herself is best.....but I don't really expect a 13SF plot to grow enough variation to fill all of her nutritional needs either.
 

Len B

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My box turtles live wild outside but every now and then I need to bring a youngster inside. What I do is drop some mazuri water turtle pellets around for them to find. In a moist environment they eventually soften enough for a youngster to eat them. I raise meal worms and always have them in the pupae stag when they are very soft and easy for them to eat. For and adult I use multi species pond fish food just sprinkled around the yard in certainn areas where they travel. They will even eat the regular mazuri tortoise diet. For years if Walker didn't eat all his mazuri and it rains overnight the wild ones are out early to nibble on it. I use earth worms also.
 

jeff kushner

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I "worked at home" today....which means I checked in on little Matilda.....I think she's fine. She will soak on the rock, if the fountain is turned off....lol...she's Chicken Little sometimes! Today we will "infuse" more worms & pill bugs.

The plastic pool is going away, I don't like it but I'll leave it for now so the plants can grow for a while. At some point it will be transformed to concrete, very simply, very leakproof and I can roll the edges for her. Matilda resting3.pngMatilda resting1.png
 

Maro2Bear

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Hey Jeff. You can also add in a lot more leaf litter, get some decayed logs, more flat stones, dig puddles, squishy areas, all of this will encourage more little bugs, snails, slugs, etc. All of these creatures will eat and feed on one another. One semi-rotten squash turned upside down encourages all kinds of natural bugs. Good luck - stay cool in this heat.
 

jeff kushner

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Great idea....and exactly the place "squash" should be....lol, yeah, not a fan of eating it. The heat...I was out for most of the day yesterday and watched as Matilda took 3-4 baths, explored a while then got under cover around 10-11AM as the temps soared over 90F. It was 97 in the shade around here yesterday and I was laying wire for my new landscaping crew(robot mowers) and it was HOT. The thought of "too old for this sh*t"....that thought kept swimming in my mind as the heat exhaustion set it.

The robots have a very high "cool factor" though and after seeing them in person, maybe I should name them Turtle-A & B instead of Hose?
Yard crew.jpg
Relax folks, I mean no harm, I'm an equal opportunity idiot....lol


jeff
 

Krista S

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Great idea....and exactly the place "squash" should be....lol, yeah, not a fan of eating it. The heat...I was out for most of the day yesterday and watched as Matilda took 3-4 baths, explored a while then got under cover around 10-11AM as the temps soared over 90F. It was 97 in the shade around here yesterday and I was laying wire for my new landscaping crew(robot mowers) and it was HOT. The thought of "too old for this sh*t"....that thought kept swimming in my mind as the heat exhaustion set it.

The robots have a very high "cool factor" though and after seeing them in person, maybe I should name them Turtle-A & B instead of Hose?
View attachment 329058
Relax folks, I mean no harm, I'm an equal opportunity idiot....lol


jeff
I imagine that is like a roomba, only it’s a lawn mower?! That’s so cool! Never knew that even existed.
 

jeff kushner

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I took it out and let it go, after watching it do a self-test byHose-A 2.pngHose-A 1.png "walking the line" to ensure it could go everywhere, it just randomly began cutting while I went inside, took a shower etc....when I came out over an hour later, it had just went into "seek home" mode and followed the wire back to base to recharge.

It doesn't present a threat to Matilda because I can't let her run free in the yard anyway but after gazing at her yesterday then watching this thing crawl around the yard.....,well, I'm thinking that maybe Hose-A is really Yertle? A bit of costume and she'd look the part???


jeff
 

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