- Joined
- Apr 23, 2015
- Messages
- 239
We've had a cold snap this week here in Albuquerque like I think a lot of the US. Temperatures have dropped down into the 30s at night and all the turtles have gone mostly inactive. I havn't seen many of the turtles in the last week, but this evening I poked my head outside and saw one of the giant mexican musk turtles upside down at the bottom in the deep area of the pond. They look like they were trying to come up and couldn't. There are lots of places to get to the surface and hang out, but I guess she was trying to surface out in the middle of the open pond.
I don't know how long she was upside down at the bottom, but bringing her inside I was able to get quite a bit of water out of her nose. She is currently isolated in the 180 gallon indoor aquarium out of the water. Hopefully she is recovering, but it doesn't look promising in terms of movement. I know when Fatty had a similar thing occur in January of this year it was about a month before she seemed back to normal. If the giant mexican musk turtle recovers I'll set up a temporary aquarium so that she isn't in the aquarium with the 3 month old rio grande river cooters. She is as big as all 4 put together and then some so that seems like a bad idea.
I'll keep everyone posted and welcome any thoughts or advice.
I assumed that a turtle native to southern mexico and central america would be fine with New Mexico winters, but she was swimming and eating and hanging out just fine up until a week ago, so I guess the cold weather surprised her. The musk turtles are all just over a year old, so I think I'll take this experience as an opportunity to develop a couple new rules for the turtles.
1. Actually native the region, not "close" with arbitrarily determined values for close. I didn't realize just how different the relative climates of their home range are to here until I had already pulled the trigger.
2. Turtles don't go into the pond until they're at least 1 year old. Since I go the Rio Grande cooters in August, that means spring of 2025 is the earliest I'll put them outside. If they start acting aggressive or anything like that (which is why I moved the GMMs out early) I'll separate them or find an alternative that is not putting them in the pond at 6 months old.
I don't know how long she was upside down at the bottom, but bringing her inside I was able to get quite a bit of water out of her nose. She is currently isolated in the 180 gallon indoor aquarium out of the water. Hopefully she is recovering, but it doesn't look promising in terms of movement. I know when Fatty had a similar thing occur in January of this year it was about a month before she seemed back to normal. If the giant mexican musk turtle recovers I'll set up a temporary aquarium so that she isn't in the aquarium with the 3 month old rio grande river cooters. She is as big as all 4 put together and then some so that seems like a bad idea.
I'll keep everyone posted and welcome any thoughts or advice.
I assumed that a turtle native to southern mexico and central america would be fine with New Mexico winters, but she was swimming and eating and hanging out just fine up until a week ago, so I guess the cold weather surprised her. The musk turtles are all just over a year old, so I think I'll take this experience as an opportunity to develop a couple new rules for the turtles.
1. Actually native the region, not "close" with arbitrarily determined values for close. I didn't realize just how different the relative climates of their home range are to here until I had already pulled the trigger.
2. Turtles don't go into the pond until they're at least 1 year old. Since I go the Rio Grande cooters in August, that means spring of 2025 is the earliest I'll put them outside. If they start acting aggressive or anything like that (which is why I moved the GMMs out early) I'll separate them or find an alternative that is not putting them in the pond at 6 months old.
