Escaping Red Eared Sliders

Question
Hi,
We have a pretty large pond in our back yard with 3 pairs of red eared sliders. Even though my husband has included a sandy area for them to lay their eggs in, they will have NOTHING to do with it, and a couple of the females keep 'rock climbing' their way out of the pond to go to other dirt. By the time we have found them, they have very narrow but deep holes made. I'm assuming they are ready to lay eggs. If they INSIST on laying in the yard dirt, should we let them? If we do let them, are we supposed to keep the soil moist that the eggs are in? Will the female just lay the eggs and go back to the pond? Last question - is there anything particular we can do to draw them to the 'birthing bog' that was built for them within the pond?
Thank you for any insight you can give us - we LOVE our turtles!
Judy

Answer
Mommy turtles want what they want for nesting- sometimes we can figure it out and offer it to them, sometimes they just do what they want no matter what.

If hey choose the site, you can usually count on them to choose one with the right temps and humidity automatically... unless it is a younger female doing what are either practice or decoy nests (no one is really sure why they sometimes dig un-used nests!)

About the only suggestions I can make are to mix in lots of leaf litter/mulch to the sand to make it so it can hold more water (sand is very dry normally), and to understand that the turtles will usually avoid sites that are heavily walked on, visited by humans, etc.

Try http://ww.austinsturtlepage.com for other ideas and info.