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Many Questions/Box turtle

22 16:38:30

Question
I have several questions I hope you can answer:
1.I have a male Three-toed-Box turtle, I beleave he is an adult(89% sure), will he get along with other males? The enclosure is large with plenty of hiding places.
2.Do females of the three toed speices get along with each other?
3.People warn me to watch out for shell rot and how to prevent it,HOWEVER, they seldom include photos or list how to tell if the turtle has it.
I need help with that.


Answer
89%? Why 89% instead of 88% or 90%? That's funny.

One can never be sure if males are going to get along with other males, especially if they are wild caught. Males tend to be territorial and they frequently attack each other without let up. They will sometimes head butt a rival, turn them upside down, chase them, bite them on the head, limbs, and tail. They can, and do, bite each other's tails off. A balance must always be struck between numbers of males housed in one enclosure, and male/female ratio. There should ideally be 2 or more females per male, and the more males you have the more enclosures you need to have, or the larger the enclosure. You told me the enclosure was "large", but I don't know if it really is or not, since you did not give me a dimension.

Three-Toed's tend to be the most docile of all the subspecies, but individual personalities and experience make a difference, as well as conditions. You will just have to monitor interaction closely. Sometimes territorial behavior presents itself as one turtle keeping another turtle from being able to eat.    

Females usually get along, though individual nature may make exceptions. They may compete with each other for resources, but they are rarely aggressive. Female Three-Toeds are perhaps the most gentle of all box turtles.

Shell rot has a pretty distinctive appearance that you really can't miss is probably why most people don't go into detail. In short, anything that looks like "rot", looks discolored, abscessed, scutes flaking off in thick layers, foul smelling, slimy, chips that show white of bone underneath. All these and ANYTHING that looks like shell damage, should be checked out by a vet. Shell rot is deadly if left untreated. The shell is actually the bone structure that is layered with keratin. If this keratin protection gets cracked, chipped, or otherwise compromised; the underlying bone can become infected, and if that happens it can turn into a deadly systemic infection.

You know it is not hard to find your own photos of shell rot. I had none of my own handy, but a simple websearch revealed several pages with photos of shell rot...

http://aboxturtle.com/shell_rot.htm
http://russiantortoise.org/shell_rot.htm
http://www.tortoise-aid.org/wildcaught.html

I'm just a fan of people doing some of their own work, especially when it's easy stuff they could do with a "google". I'm here for the hard stuff and don't mind taking that.