Western Painted Turtle...

[Boots]

I have chickens, had goats, have dogs and cats, and a beta fish named Blueberry. But this post is about my turtle, Tyrone. Who ever knew I could come to love a teeny tiny little turtle? Well..I do. He is just as sweet as can be. I rescued him from my sister in laws jack russell terrior on Easter Sunday and brought him home to live in my front room. He lives in an old fish aquarium, with some rocks that we got down by the river. He comes to me when I call his name, or when I shake his can of "stinky sticks" (Reptomin feed sticks that smell like the bowels of Hell). He eats right out of my hand, for now. I think when he gets big though, he will have the potential to rip my fingers right off....so I wil enjoy the hand feeding for now, but will eventually switch to just dropping the sticks into the water for him. He likes to go out on the back porch and swim in the little purple kiddie pool that I bought for the dogs. I never knew I could like a turtle so much.

[Arlene]

that is so cute!! I used to rescue the little tarpins from the side of the road.. found out when I grew up that they were going to lay eggs or did lay them so I was not rescuing htem at all haha. but we used to paint our initials on their backs and turn them loose down at the creek..

that one has a red belly.. how cute it that!!

how big do they get??

[Boots]

They will grow (within reason) to the size of thier environment. My best friends daughter and son each have one, (well...Dionna has two, Andrew only has one cuz his biggest one killed the second one by biting it's head off)..anyways, theirs are hugh-normous...like the shells are the size of a salad plate. They have had thiers over 7 years and have switched up tank sizes over the years. In the summer time, theirs live out back in a kiddy pool. Well, not Andrews anymore, not since it developed a taste for turtle. His stays in it's big tank most of the time. It already bit the tail off one of Dionna turtles, so it is now in permanent segregation.

[Arlene]

wow bit off its head? don't stick your finger in there for sure haha..

I know nothing about turtles but they are so cool!

[silkifyre]

We have turtles also! We have a Red Earred Slider, which is the bigger one, and also a Painted. But I don't think it's a Western. Ours has a reddish stripe going down the center of it's shell, from head to tail. The slider is about 4" long now, and the painted is maybe 2" if that.

We got 2 bullfrog tadpoles about a week ago and put in the tank with them. We wondered if the slider might try to eat them, but the tadpoles were almost as big as he is. We figured they'd be safe. Well, yesterday, my older son saw the slider EATING the one tadpole! The other tadpole could not be found so we figured he was already gone. Poor things. Bob fished out the remains of the tadpole. Guess now we know... can't keep live things in with the turtles. Hopefully, the slider doesn't try to eat the smaller painted!

The other day I watched the slider go up to the painted, head to head, and the slider put his front feet up to his face and flutter his feet at the painted. What is that??? Is it a type of courtship? Aren't they too little for that kind of thing? These guys aren't even a year old yet! How old are turtles before they start courtships? I don't even know how to sex these guys. I guess the turtles know!

They are neat, though. I wonder if they'll eat feeder fish? I guess they would if they'll eat tadpoles!

[Arlene]

prob eat anything. why are they called painter turtles?? huh? huh? I wanna know! I wanna!

summer vacation is making me whacky..

[silkifyre]

You're such a goof! Painteds are probably called painted cuz they LOOK painted! DUH! Actually, the one we have is pretty neat, cuz the first thing you see is the red stripe going down it's shell. I never saw a turtle like that before. The sides of his head have stripes, kinda like the slider has. There are other markings that make them look neat, too. I'll try to get a pic or two of them to post. But don't hold your breath cuz I'm not sure how to get the pic from the camera to the puter, yet.

You have summer vacation??? Wow, lucky you! I don't get vacation!

[Arlene]

not me.. Mitchell has summer vacation.. I have to go on with life .. work and all that..

I pm'd you jessica

[silkifyre]

I'm saddened. Our Painted turtle passed away. It happened like a week or so ago. I don't think the Slider turtle did anything to it, it didn't look injured in any way. It had all it's parts, as far as I could see. Poor li'l thing. He was only a baby... just 2" diameter shell, roughly. And he was such a neat looking turtle with that red stripe going down his back. Damn. I hate when that happens. Oh well, I guess we're meant to have just the one turtle.

[Arlene]

they say turtles die slow and not really live long as we think they do.... because they die so slow..

[silkifyre]

I dunno. I don't really know a lot about turtles. Guess I should do some reading up on them, huh? At least for the species that we do have remaining. He's a Red Earred Slider. Real purty, as far as turtles go. ;D