Turtles

~Seera~

I have had a Red Eared Slider for almost 2 years. I rescued Seera from a family member that won him at a fair and then failed to take care of her. I really didn't know much about aquatic turtles. It took a while to figure out what a proper diet should be for her. I took Seera to the vet and the vet said that she was suffering from metabolic bone disease from lack of calcium (not to mention she didn't have a UVB or basking light). So after that I fed her a high calcium diet. Unfortunately I was feeding her quite a bit of spinach for a while and I didn't know that spinach is the absolute worst thing you can give to a turtle! So I'm afraid I might have made it worse for her. Her shell doesn't seem too damaged but there is some noticably MBD damage. Also the vet had told me to feed her only greens/vegetables/fruit and reptomin. Recently I read that as babies, RES are mostly carnivorous and eat a lot more live foods! They don't become highly vegetarian until they reach maturity. If only I had known that from the start. I fear she has not had enough protein and some other vitamins. I'm sorry that I always have to find things out almost to late. But I'm really going to try hard to pump her full of good nutrition and see what happens. Wish us luck.

~Loki~

I got a new turtle on the 26th of January. I went to the Reptile show and I had been planning to get a Rio Grande Slider. This time a guy had some nice ones and I was hooked. I believe that this little guy is a male, so I have named him Loki. He is a lot more bold and outgoing than Seera. Loki does not live in the same tank as Seera. I might never put them together. Right now Loki is small, but not too small. He is actually around 1.5 inches long (carapace) and lives in a ten gallon tank. He was eating and basking on the very frist day. I was so proud :). He is a hearty eater of both insects, greens/veggies/fruits/, aquatic plants, and cuttlebone. I'm doing everything right, from the start with this little guy. He has a neat piece of driftwood to bask on and has a cave to hide in. Turtles are neat!

I Love my turtles!

My next turtle species should be African Helmeted Sidenecks.