People who have turtles in their backyard ponds or in tanks or aquariums that are outside often find that their turtles literally run away from home. Sometimes a turtle will try to escape extreme heat or cold conditions by digging into the soil in your backyard. Unless you live close to a canal or other body of water, it is doubtful that a turtle will be able to find a way to get to a safe body of water where it can live.
Additionally, many domesticated turtles are no longer able to hunt or scavenge for their food. These domesticated turtles are also not used to avoiding predatory fish, ducks, gulls, alligators, or people.
So if your turtle takes off one day, make every reasonable effort to try and find it. If you do not live near any body of water, the turtle probably dug itself into the ground somewhere in your yard or nearby.
If you do not find the turtle and take the turtle out of the ground wash it off and put it back in the tank, it will die if left in the standard backyard soil. More than likely you will find them some time later while planting something, and the turtle will be rotting away (shell only) a few inches under the top soil.
The standard backyard is not a good place for turtles to hibernate. When they do this in nature, they are supposed to do it by the banks of their ponds, canals, rivers, etc. These bodies of water have compacted, muddy soil on the banks near the water and that soil stays wet and hard and keeps out ants. This kind of muddy soil gets softer when it rains hard (usually Spring showers) and that is usually when the hibernating turtles wake up from winter hibernation.
The backyard soil is nothing like that, and it is full of all kinds of predatory insects, and it is not cool and moist. So before your turtle dehydrates to death and/or is eaten by red ants or other critters, try to find it in your backyard.
If you see your turtles are having trouble dealing with extreme heat or cold weather, you should use your common sense and bring the turtles indoors for a while so that they can acclimate themselves to the normal climate conditions inside your home. This will lower the stress that their biological systems have been dealing with outside.
When turtles are in the wild, they can swim or walk away from a harsh environment and seek a better place or hibernate or otherwise fend for themselves. When they are in an enclosed area, the turtles are relying on their owner to control the environment and to make sure it is healthy for the turtles.
2 comments:
Is there any way to safely keep red eared sliders outside for a Texas winter in a tank or 30 gallon rubber trough; whether it be by letting them hibernate (in which case, what should I provide them with)? Or if not hibernating, what kind of water heating/lamps should I provide and water/air temp should I shoot for? thanks.
You can probably find some websites with detailed information on hibernating turtles. I have never tried to encourage turtles to hibernate. What I have read indicates that even under natural conditions a certain percentage will not come out of hibernation. Turtles can also get sick when they come out of hibernation. I prefer to just keep the tanks lit with the standard lighting year round. The turtles stay warm and active and they eat more or less the same amount. Check out the internet and good luck with your turtles.
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