Question
George (we thought she
Jeannie- We found a female ornate box turtle (about 4" across) wandering in the street in our subdivision in Albuquerque, NM. We brought her into our fenced-in xeriscaped yard & she seems to be thriving. She sleeps in holes she's dug under low bushes & in the wood chips coming out to explore several times a day for a hour or so. We've set out water to drink and a larger shallow water bowl that she goes in sometimes. My question is how much should I be feeding her? I give her 2 or 3 red wiggler worms and/or wax & meal worms daily which she loves. I also give her zucchini,green beans & carrots which she generally ignores. She loves strawberries & would eat as many as I would give her. (She only gets 1/2 per day.) I want to make sure she is strong enough to hibernate in the fall/winter and don't have a clue how much I should feed her. I've seen her eat ants off the ground and she's always looking for things in the bark to eat so I assume she's supplementing what I give her. Should I increase the worms & not worry about the fact she doesn't eat many veggies? How many strawberries should she be allowed to eat? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
AnswerHi Cathy,
Ornates will eat a lot of animal matter--worms, slugs, snails, pill bugs, pinky mice, etc. She is most likely doing quite a bit of hunting on her own in your yard, and you can help her out by putting out pieces of bark and piles of leaf litter that will attract bugs--if your yard is very dry, having one area that is more moist with leaf litter will make a good area for her to hunt and dig into. You'll also want to make sure that there's a good area with soft dirt for her to dig into for hibernation, and then cover it with a good layer of straw or leaf litter. If you're feeding her, at this time of year I'd go ahead and feed her as much as she wants to eat. Since she's living outside (and this is ideal), she's getting plenty of exercise so I wouldn't worry about overfeeding.
She will eat some plant material and fruit, but maybe not a whole lot. Try mushrooms, dandelion, spring mix, collards, etc. She may be more interested in the mushrooms and leafy greens than vegetables. I think the strawberries are fine, but don't overdo them (maybe a couple a day), and try some other types of fruit such as melon, other berries, apple, and so forth.
Here's a link to an ornate care sheet that may be of some help to you:
http://aboxturtle.com/ornate.htm
It sounds like she's in a very good situation, and she should be fine hibernating this year.
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