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Post by unclejoe on Sept 13, 2014 13:56:44 GMT -5
yeah, we have a bunch of different species in our pond, and we'd like to have one as a house pet some day when we get settled, but I don't think I'd want a snapper. The one we feed seems ok, but they have sharp beaks and powerful jaws. One accidental bite was enough to stop me from hand-feeding Zilla. Holy crap. I could tell that he caught himself, too. It could have been a lot worse. He swam off and stayed out of reach looking at me like he was sorry and embarrassed, lol.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2014 8:24:38 GMT -5
Awww poor Zilla. But I know exactly what you mean. When I was younger we had wild snapping turtles near us and my family always stressed how important it was to stay away from them.
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Post by lyles on Sept 16, 2014 6:32:53 GMT -5
That's why I love box turtles. They are so tame that I've never had one try to bite me, no matter how I handled them (though I've had many that would savagely attack nail clippers! ).
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Post by unclejoe on Dec 6, 2014 20:10:55 GMT -5
This little one had been floating offshore watching the feeding action for a month or so. At first we thought he was a mud turtle but the shape of his face and markings are wrong. I sent an email to Eric, the Florida turtle expert, for help to identify him. His carapace is about 6-7 inches. His eyes and skin are all black, which I haven't seen on any turtle pics. This is a new shot of Seashell (aka CC). She was our first "rescue." Last fall ('13) she had a fish hook in her upper jaw that threatened to take out an eye. We landed her with a net and I was able to cut the hook. It took her months to come close again, but now she eats from our hands, and she didn't before we helped her. We also have youngish red ear named Amber join us in the past month. We had a cold snap a couple weeks ago and didn't see any turtles for a week, but last night and tonight we had 9-10 of 4 species plus the new guy come visit.
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Post by unclejoe on Dec 7, 2014 19:12:07 GMT -5
Eric says the new guy is most likely a red ear slider. Apparently they can give up their colors when they get older. We've named him Jet.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2014 9:06:50 GMT -5
I was going to say he look like a red eared slider except for the head color.
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Post by RedSky on Dec 12, 2014 10:17:10 GMT -5
Jet is a very handsome individual. I hope he sticks around, I would love to see more pictures of him. They are all so lovely and I can see you must spend quite a bit of time with them. I wish I could a better relationship with our local wildlife. We have a robin we named Batman come to the garden fairly often but we haven't had any others that we see too often.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2014 16:27:17 GMT -5
I was thinking he looked super strange, so I asked my Tort group about it and they said he is a Melanistic RES. Basically a gene mutation like an albino. They said, like your friend mentioned, that when they are really old they can sometimes become Melanistic also
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Post by unclejoe on Dec 14, 2014 8:05:46 GMT -5
If he's old enough to be all melanistic, he has to be fully grown at about 7 inches. We have one female red ear his size and 2 others 10 inches Red (now named Miss Scarlet) and Magenta in this pic.
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Post by unclejoe on Dec 23, 2014 20:49:55 GMT -5
A couple videos of feeding today. It's been warm enough lately that most of the resident terps have re-emerged for now. Momma Momma (yellow belly slider) Goldie (Florida soft shell) and Amber (red ear slider)
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Post by acodlin on Dec 24, 2014 10:48:25 GMT -5
Those videos were so neat. I've never seen a turtle take food from someones hands.. they remind me of my hedgehog lol, very shy and hesitant.. snatch that food and run away!
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Post by unclejoe on Dec 24, 2014 19:47:45 GMT -5
:christmascandle: Some of them are braver than others. Momma and Magenta will put a foot on our foot as a way of encouraging us to hurry it up lol. They will only EAT in the water. They take the food back to the pond and let it mix with water in their mouths before they swallow it.
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Post by unclejoe on Dec 25, 2014 9:39:24 GMT -5
:christmascandle: If you find hand-feeding turtles interesting... This is/was Wolfie, a large mouth bass
We haven't seen him in a year. But I'm working on Wolfie II, aka Joe Bass
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Post by unclejoe on Mar 14, 2015 15:29:13 GMT -5
Today while we were doing some outdoor work we met up with Sheldon moving to his summer home in the pond in front of our place. Video of pond entry. Dar helped him with about 15 yards of transport. He's notfond of being handled, but once back on the ground at water's edge he didn't just bolt. An hour later we saw him floating behind Momma, who we haven't seen in a while. Yesterday was the first time we've seen 4 of the soft shells in a couple months.
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Post by unclejoe on Mar 18, 2015 5:53:18 GMT -5
We assumed it was Sheldon because he's always been the only male yellow belly we've seen in this pond. Well, yesterday I saw Sheldon and this one at the same time. This dude is bigger.
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