Skittish Map turtles

[Paschendale52]

Does anyone have any ideas for getting skittish map turtles to come to the surface to eat? I'm trying to feed with just floating pellets, since I can buy them in much larger bulk for my pond.

My painted and razorback musk turtles are getting comfortable enough to come get some pellets at the surface, but the map turtles still dive down and hide in the ~5' deep area of the pond. I havn't had any success yet with hanging out long enough to get the turtles comfortable to come up to the surface to eat.

 

[wellington]

How old/big are they?
How long have you had them?
How long have they been in the pond?
Are they able to get any food?

 

[Paschendale52]

How old/big are they?
How long have you had them?
How long have they been in the pond?
Are they able to get any food?

The map turtles are 3 years old at this point. I've had them since they were hatchlings. They've always been super skittish, even when they were in a 120 gallon and then 180 gallon aquarium inside (first 2 years of life). They've been in the pond since September or so (when the pond was built). I've made sure they can get food a couple of times by finding them hiding in caves or something and dropping sinking pellets to them. But that isn't super often.

 

[wellington]

I don't know how to make them more comfortable except to stay low to ground and sit out there more often. You can also try adding more coverage of plants. To be sure they have a better chance of eating, I would feed floating pellets to the ones that will come up and then when they are busy eating throw in the sinking pellets where you know they usually hide.

 

[Markw84]

Map turtles are the most skittish of all N American turtles right along with Pacific Pond Turtles. My Adults that I've had over 20 years still are very reluctant to eat at the surface when I am there, even though all the other turtles are swarming around the pellets.

However, they do eat the floating pellets eagerly a bit further away from me or when I step back from the edge now. My problem was getting them to eat before all the others ate it all, or put in more food and have it wash into the skimmers before they got to it. So although very skittish, they will learn to come up and get some when they are hungry. All are doing great and producing babies yearly.

 

[TammyJ]

Tell them it's KFC...lol!!!
I think they just have to get accustomed to the fact that you are not going to dive down and hand feed them, but nor are you going to eat them when they come up.
Any pictures?

 

[Paschendale52]

I've been leaving enough food in those little floating discs to contain the food so they don't wash into the skimmer and just leaving. The koi and painted turtles go after it pretty quick, but they definitely leave some behind. I'll just keep operating on faith that the map turtles are eating. If I sit still enough the maps will come out from under the rocks and out of the bottom, but if I as much as sneeze they are back down to the bottom. I'll just have to work on my human statue routine for now.

I'll get some new pictures up here before too long.

 

[Paschendale52]

Another thing to mark in the lessons learned category: With the map turtles, while they were in the house (2 years) I almost always kept them fed with an automatic timer feeder. So they didn't every really learn to associate my presence with food appearing. I think feeding them manually more often would have helped make the associate that would help now.

 

[Paschendale52]

Tell them it's KFC...lol!!!
I think they just have to get accustomed to the fact that you are not going to dive down and hand feed them, but nor are you going to eat them when they come up.
Any pictures?

Updated photo of the whole pond. You can see I've added a couple of floating logs. They're getting less floaty every day, but I'll prop them up once they get fully waterlogged. I've seen 4 turtles at them at once so far during the day. Everyone except Granny, the razorback musk turtle.
I now have 4 lilies in the water which are growing in nicely.




The basking area I recently updated with a few plants instead of the flagstone that was there. I had originally thought the turtles would get out on the flag stone and hang out, but I have literally never seen them use them, so I replaced them with more plants. I've been having a lot of algae since spring started, so I'm hoping adding more and more plants will help control that.



Just another photo of the basking area plants and a lily.


Its hard to tell from distance, but I think this is Grey Eyes. They are about 3' deep hiding under one of the cloth potting bags for a lily.


Last but not least, is Granny. She has been the most active through both winter and now spring. There is quite a bit of algae growing off her shell thats been there since winter. She is often out, but doesn't come to the surface very often. I know thats pretty typical for razorback musk turtles.

 

[mark1]

I'll just keep operating on faith that the map turtles are eating.

imo operating on faith is the only way to go with many of them ...... if there is food available , if they're healthy and happy with their environment they'll eat, if they're not you'll eventually find out .... may depend on the enclosure or species , but it appears to me sick semi-aquatic turtles don't sit in the water , they tend to sit on land too much , and they lose their skittishness , it's been how i've spotted them in the past ...... some folks may think different , but i read someone on here write something that i firmly believe , especially when it comes to the skittish ones, the more you leave them alone the better they do ........... i get the impression the "human statue" doesn't work that well once they've seen you, maybe i am just not patient enough, i think these guys see as well if not better than birds .......

i have some turtles i see eat all the time , i have others i'm lucky if i see them eat once or twice in a year .......

 

[TammyJ]

The pond setup is wonderful! I'd live in it myself if I could afford the rent...!