Is the way my turtle sleeping normal?

Question
Hi, I have a box turtle who is about 18 years old. He usually sleeps and spends most of his time under his wooden log shelter but just now when I was going in to feed him, I found him sleeping out in the open under his lamp with his whole neck and arms and legs out of his shell. At first I thought he was dead but when I reached in to pick him up he quickly moved back into his shell. I use a heating lamp with one of those energy efficient twisted looking light bulbs. It says on the light bulb that it is 23 watts. Also, his water bowl was looking pretty empty, and the light had been on for a couple days straight, I usually turn it off at night, so do you think maybe he was dehydrated? After having this scare of my turtle being dead, I gave him fresh food, I switch off between giving him lettuce, celery, carrots, various fruits, and worms, filling his water dish with lukewarm tap water, giving him a quick rinse in the sink, and turning off his lamp. After I put him back in his aquarium he ate a couple pieces of lettuce and went back to his log. Have you ever heard of other box turtles sleeping like that or do you think maybe he was dehydrated or something? Thank you so much for your time and input, any answers would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
Hi Celeste,

It's pretty common for them to bask with all their limbs out, and they do look dead when they do it, so I don't think that's a problem.  *However*, I'm afraid you need to make some serious changes to his habitat in order to keep him healthy.  I'm surprised you haven't had any trouble before this.

Get him out of the tank ASAP.  Boxies need plenty of room, and even a fairly large tank isn't big enough.  It's also difficult to establish a good temperature gradient because of the glass.  In fact, if at all possible I'd build an outdoor pen and put him outside permanently.  Boxies do much better outside, and they can hibernate just fine on their own if you provide them with an area of soft earth and some leaf litter, straw, etc.  

If you do decide to keep him indoors, he needs an enclosure that's a minimum of 4' x 3'.  Bigger would be better.  A natural substrate of topsoil or a mix of coir (bed-a-beast or ecoearth) and playsand.  It needs to be moist because boxies prefer a moist environment.  There should be a basking area of about 90 degrees, but also plenty of cool areas that go down to 70ish so he can regulate his temperature.  He needs a large, shallow water dish that he can get into completely.    

The coil bulb you're using doesn't give off enough heat for basking purposes, and it won't provide much UVB, either.  Without UVB, he won't be able to metabolize calcium and will eventually develop bone problems.  To solve this, either get a good UVB bulb (I'd use a combination heat/UVB bulb such as the T-Rex Active UV heat or the ZooMed Powersun; you can order either at www.lllreptile.com), or move him outside.  If you use a lamp, get an inexpensive lamp timer so you won't have to worry about remembering to turn the light on and off.

His diet doesn't sound too bad, but rather than lettuce, which is pretty poor nutritionally, offer him greens such as turnip, mustard, collards, kale, dandelion, chicory, etc.  Skip the celery; better veggies to offer are squashes, peppers, and mushrooms, along with some carrot.  If he's outside, he can hunt slugs, snails, bugs, and worms for himself, but try to offer more variety of animal protein--boiled chicken/egg, pinkie mice, crickets, etc.  Put a cuttlebone in the enclosure so he can nibble on it for extra calcium if he needs it.

Boxies are very hardy and can survive in less than ideal conditions, but if you make the changes I suggested you may be surprised to see how much his behavior changes and how interesting it is to watch him.  Especially if you can build him an outdoor pen, you can do some naturalistic plantings and provide a really nice environment for him.  I linked a website for you below so you can do some more reading.  Good luck!

www.aboxturtle.com