Kirby goodson
New Member
So I kind of have a few questions.
I've had my "Tut" for about a year now. My fiance came home from work and found himself stepping on her in the gravel driveway and decided to bring it to me. We don't really know where she came from. We always seen turtles all over NC but usually there were creeks or ponds nearby, but there's no water near his house for a few miles. It was very small when he brought it to me, bigger than the size of a quarter, but not quite as big as a silver dollar. Its shell was almost flat as well.
All of the pet stores told us it was an american box turtle, but I don't think it looks anything like an american box. I didn't really trust them much about it because its illegal to sell turtles in petstores in NC, so they didn't really have much experience with them.
With that said, I don't know how old my Tut is, or whether its a boy or a girl. We've always just called her a she. We also, like I said, have no clue what she is.
She's very to herself, she always hides beneath things. But when I put her in her tank, she doesn't burrow. Shed rather hide beneath our curtains or under the stacks of magazines I have under my bed. She also doesn't like heat very much it seems. Everyone says to keep them very warm, around 80°-100° in a section of their tanks. She doesn't like that. She always goes away from it. She hates her tank, she always tries to claw her way out, so I tried covering the glass because I heard that putting a turtle in glass is torterous, they think they can go through it or something.. But even when covered she still scratches at the glass. She can swim, but she doesn't very much like to be in water. Every few days she'll come out from under the bed and run around the room, I water her and (try to) feed her every day.
But now feeding her is becoming a real task. When we first got her, she didn't eat for maybe three days. I read up to give her veggies and seldom fruit, Rollie pollies as well, but she wouldn't touch any of it. She worried me. I remember going to the gas station and picking up an egg sandwich, going home and getting tut out, leaving both the sandwich and tut on the bed, coming back and tut had eaten a great deal of the egg from my sandwich! That's when we learned that she loved meat. That's the only thing I've ever been able to get her to eat besides her turtle pellets, which she stopped eating about a month ago for some reason. I've given her strawberries, grapes, cherries, apple, lettuce, carrots, so on an so forth. She doesnt eat it though. I've tried mixing veggies with her meat, but she outsmarted me and refused to eat any of it. She usually eats chicken, ocassionally tuna. She doesn't like bugs. She's also very slow, I know she's a turtle.. But, some say they'll catch live bugs and stuff but she's like.. Really slow. Even when she "runs"
But for the past going on two weeks, I haven't been able to get her to eat anything. She drinks a lot of water though. I've tried buying her different foods and turtle treats and all sorts of things but she isn't interested. I've been giving her carrot water though which she seems to enjoy. That's it though.. Could someone help me find out what's wrong with her, what kind of turtle she is, about how old she may be, and the gender??
She's worrying me to death!!