A look at the care and feeding of your Red Eared Sliders



As promised.... here's some cool instructions for getting your little turtles to full-size - like the ones shown here!

A special "Hello" to Church of the Saviour, and here's a little info concerning the turtles you got from me at camp -

First off, here's a little history! Your turtles came from one of four different parents, which all came from different places! Some are hybrids, which are Red Eared Sliders, mixed with Yellow Bellied Sliders, which are very similar. From here on out I will refer to Red Eared Sliders as RES, as the breeders call them (plus it saves a lot of typing!).

My RES females came from everyplace from Ohio, Pennsylvania, to Texas, and were all bred with wild-caught males from Florida, so they are all definitely well mixed! In fact most of them have some Yellow Bellied mixed in, and they call them "sliders" by the way they like to sit in the sun...... and by the way they dash into the water when they feel themselves in danger!

So lets take a look at how to care for them! By the way if you bought a Wood turtle from me, please click HERE, but if you have a RES..... please read ON!

YOUR BABIES

Here I am holding an adult female.

You may notice for several weeks they may not appear to do much! They may in fact sit in the corner of their enclosure and just LOOK at you, and for them this is quite normal! They won't eat much during this time, and in fact they may "freeze" whenever you walk into the room!

Keep in mind how big YOU are when compared to THEM, and it's no WONDER they seem a little scared at first...... but they will eventually settle down, and their tameness seems to come in stages, unlike Wood turtles, that seem tame from the moment they leave the egg shell! Be patient, and if you move slowly around them, within a month or so they will eat freely, and may even come to you to take food from your fingers!

So let's get started!



THE SETUP



Aquariums are good...... especially if you have an extra one sitting around, but here's a BETTER way! Let's go out and get a Rubbermaid-type container. Wal-Mart usually has good ones, and don't forget the Dollar stores! The best size for starters will be about 2 ft. square, with sides at least 4 or 5 inches tall. This will hold them for their first year or two.

Also don't worry about color. Clear, white, black, yellow, pink and green polka dots..... all will work! I like dark colors myself so I can enjoy the turtles in a natural colored background.

WATER - You've got two choices here: One is to simply place an object like a book, under one end. Your container will now be tilted. Now add water til all but the top few inches are submerged. Presto! Instant setup!

Choice #2 is to leave your container FLAT, and add 2 - 3 inches of water. Place a clean rock in there, and you're now ready!


Let's throw some LIGHT on the subject!




A reflector lamp such as this one will do PERFECTLY! This will be their little "sunshine", and should be left on 24 hours a day, every day of the year.


Your turtle is designed to sit in the sun. This is called basking. The normal habit for a wild adult turtle is to sit in the sun first thing in the morning, and when it starts to get hot out, it returns to the water - hungry - and starts to feed in deeper water, usually on plants. After it gets a belly full it once again returns to the sun. Late in the afternoon it will return to the water, but this time it will feed a lot closer to the shore, eating little things such as snails and aquatic insect larvae, and an occasional dead fish! They usually leave the live fish well alone.

Wild baby turtles are a little different. They almost always stay near the shore, living in the thick aquatic vegetation that grows there. They seldom leave the water to bask like the adults do, but live just below the surface among the floating vegetation. The sun heats the water to near "bathwater WARM" in that area, and they thrive on small insects in this very warm water, and usually only dive deep (into deeper cooler water) at the risk of danger, such as a person walking along the edge of the pond! Catching them is easy this way by netting out the shoreline vegetation and sifting thru it.

I said all that to say THIS: In captivity they will need heat, plus a place to bask. Basking actually helps them to digest food, since the sun warms them. Don't add plants to the water, since this will make a real MESS! You'll want nothing in there but water, a rock (unless you tilt your container), and of course your turtle. Some babies will prefer to bask in shallow water by sitting there with only their head and top of the shell exposed, while others go "all the WAY" and will climb to the highest point, and spread their feet to catch every last bit of light!

The best kind of light to use is a reflector (Cheaper at Wal-Mart or a hardware store than at a pet shop!) light, and clamp it so it shines into the setup. A regular 60-watt bulb is perfect for the job, and unlike their wild cousins, leave the light on 24 hours! In captivity this is BEST for them, and I have raised beautiful healthy turtles to maturity,
and in their years they have never seen darkness!

It's by far best to keep them INDOORS! Outside the house there are too many enemies! The sun will kill them in short notice if kept there too long, and a bird could easily swoop down and pluck it from its container, not to mention neighborhood kids.... and raccoons!

Also once your turtle is feeding well and seems happy with its setup, it's best to remove it from its "home" setup and place it into something such as the bathroom sink! It can easily be fed there, and afterwards it can be rinsed and returned to its home setup.


FOOD AND FEEDING

The photo shows a large and very colorful female RES

When starting a new turtle, keep in mind that every little movement scares it, but it will eventually tame down! This will come in stages, which we will look at here. Most first-time turtle keepers find this to be the biggest stumbling-block until they learn the tricks!

(Preparing the vitaminized hamburger: Click HERE to get a look at how it's done! This will take you to my Wood/Box turtle Carepage. Scroll down to "MEAT" and see how to make this all-important mix!)

Step ONE -

You just got your turtle! It's very shy! Here's what to do! Start off by taking a few tiny pieces of raw vitaminized hamburger about the size of this letter "O", and drop them around the turtle...... then step away! Be very still and quiet, or better YET, leave the room! Have no fears, for this will be only for the first week or so! Then we'll be ready for step TWO!

Wait about a half hour before looking in, and it will help to count the pieces! Once it gets hungry enough, it will eat ALL the pieces! Start by dropping in 5 or 6 pieces, and each day (or every other day) repeat this, and your turtle will soon know that your entering the room means FOOD! Also pick a certain time of day to feed your turtle, and stick to it! They have an excellent built-in "clock", and will soon come to expect food at that time! Also for the first few weeks DO NOT HANDLE YOUR TURTLE (except for cleaning your container).

Step TWO -

Once your turtle freely eats, now pull up a chair! Take the meat like before, and after dropping it in, sit there very still and watch! Slowly your turtle will sniff around an take the first piece it comes to. Then it will seek out and eat the rest! If it eats all the pieces, go ahead and drop in some more! Keep going (by dropping in several pieces at a time), and see how much it will eat! Once it eats with you being near it, now you're ready for the next step!

Step THREE -

Now that your turtle is feeding when the meat is dropped in, try feeding it from a long, skinny object like a broomstraw or thin wooden stick!

Place a small dab of meat on the tip of the stick and place it down in front of the turtle. Soon it will learn to take the meat off the stick, and will even chase the stick if you move it away from it!

When placing the end of the stick into the water, always keep it about an inch from the turtle, and LET THE TURTLE COME TO THE STICK. Anything closer will frighten it, and it will not eat.Remember to let it come to the stick!

Step FOUR -

Once your turtle freely takes the meat from the stick, it can be either hand-fed (move s-l-o-w-l-y when putting your huge hand in there!), or meat can be dropped in front of the turtle. By now you will know how much it usually eats, and you can tell when it's full when it takes the meat, bites it, and spits most of it out. At this stage of tameness you can safely handle the turtle, and place it into a separate container for feeding.

A note about handling your turtle -

Handling it is OK, but NEVER close to feeding time - before or after! Placing your turtle into a separate container and back afterwards is fine, but save the other times for other times!

When handling, always keep it near the floor! A fall against a hard surface from several feet up will easily cause shell injury! Also it's BEST to feed it a bite or two for guests rather than to handle it, and let them feed it as well! This is more fun anyways!

Step FIVE -

Now it's time to introduce it to other foods!

After several weeks of raw vitaminized hamburger, we're gonna introduce it to "artificial diet"! This comes in the form of dry food you get from the pet store!

Buy two different kinds while you are there. One is made by Wardley, and it's called "Turtle Delite", and this is nothing more than dead, whole, small shrimp. Turtles will soon learn to really LIKE this stuff, and this is also their introduction to floating food.

Here's a look at ReptoMin and Turtle Delite, so you'll know what it looks like when you go to get it for them!



Once they start to feed on this, it can be added daily, in addition to ReptoMin by Terrafauna. These are lightweight sticks made of fish and other goodies, and the two foods I just named are all they will ever NEED in their young age, besides the raw vitaminized hamburger you started them on. Even after their hamburger feeding, they still seem to make enough room for a few of these!

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