THEE COOLEST THING TONIGHT!!!!

[MyBarakah]

:saludando: Hi Guys!

Well.... You guys will NEVER guess what I got to see this evening!!!!!!

I have a septic pond next to my one little mini pasture (it's fenced)..... I noticed I had baby turtles in there... I wasn't sure "what kind" they were at first until 2 evenings ago.... My corgi dog, Flash...... he NEVER barks or growls unless he sees something he is unsure of.... (not often)....so when he started growling badly.... I went to see what it was.....and was a large painted turtle headed for the bean feild and was crossing my drive way...... I've been here 3 years and have NEVER experienced that before! I knew where she had some from......so I took her back to the septic pond (the ONLY close thing with water)...... Well.......after putting her in and watching the septic pond...... I kept seeing more and MOREEEEE and MORE little baby turtles popping up all over! There has to be at least 20 or more babies!

Well....... then tonight I was walking threw the mini pasture and saw this same big turtle..... I knew exactly what she was doing! She had dug a hole and was laying eggs!!!! HOW COOL! So I went and got my kids... since non of us had ever whitnessed a wild turtle laying eggs! I have been told painted turtles carry Sallimanilla (miss spelled?)....but I just wounder if they carry it from the water or condition the are in....or is it in thier blood......like what Possums do.... with the EPM with horses..... it's in the possum's feeces..... I just woundered with the turtles if you hatched them out...... I took 2 of the 20 or so eggs she laid... I can easily find her nest again....I did already do a google search and found some cool/GREAT stuff on raising turtle eggs & babies.... (not very hard).... But my kids would absolutely LOVEEEEEEEE that! I was such a tom-boy growing up as a kid.......

Anyone else ever raise painted turtles or hatched thier eggs out!?........ OH......... and we can determine the sex of the turtles to by the degrees they eggs are kept..... around 86-87 degrees makes a female and around 77 degrees makes a male.......

Anyone want some baby turtles???loL! SO COOL!!!!!!!!!

:

 

[Miniv]

That IS cool!!! And what an education for your kids! I bet it felt like it was "live Animal Planet" !

I hope you have good luck with those eggs.......and take pictures if they hatch!

MA

 

[Buckskin gal]

Oh how interesting! Why not just let the mommy hatch them out and then thr kids can see the babies? Yes they do suggest that kids especially do not handle turtles ue to the deseases they can carry. Remember when they used to sell the baby painted turtles in the pet stores and even the Dime Stores...yea that was a long time ago!

: Mary

 

[MyBarakah]

Hi!

Yeah...... was kinda like animal planet live! It SURE could of been!

Well..... reason for taking a couple of the turtle eggs....... thought I would be cool for the kids to see what baby turtles are like....... but it said that baby turtles are most likely to hatch out (and come out of the hole after dark)....... and the momma turtle lays the eggs and then leaves (she covers the the nest up with dirt/mud and leaves...... those babies are then ON thier own! And as FLOODED as that septic pond is already with hords of baby turtles..... I really don't think a few turtle eggs (if they make it or not) is going to matter... If they weren't in that septic pond (gross NASTY smelling water!!)...... I would try to transplant some of them to other ponds & creeks.. but......

OH cr@P!!!!!!! I just remembered........... I have a possum in my stinking LIVE trap yet! UGH!... It's 11pm here......... IT is just going to sit there til' tomorrow!!!!! STINKING Things! And that's NOT the one I saw (I have a dang litter of them "some where"! I saw a "BABY" (just old enough to be weaned/border line!)..... in my feed room/grooming area last night (well....Dancer, my yearling filly told me by her reaction to by her acting like a allien was over there! loL).......but that was at 11pm LAST night! UGH!....... So I have a feeling.....I'm going to be catching LOTS of possums for a while! UGH! That always happens when it gets really dry here! Then the critters start coming!!!!UGH!

The turtle's are cool though!

And the painted turtles are very docile!

 

[Connie Ballard]

How big is the 'dam' turtle....the female? We had those painted turtles when I was a kid...had a clear plastic bowl they lived in with a raised area in the middle...had a little palm tree that stuck in the raised area....they'd climb out of the water and bask under the palm tree.

I came home one day and my Dad had flushed them all down the toilet....I was SO UPSET with him. He said they carried disease and we couldnt mess with them anymore. I do remember they had a funny smell and we kept their little pool/oasis clean.

How big are the babies you are seeing?

 

[Jill]

That is so neat!!! I love those kind of turtles. I bet they were so cute

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[frekles93]

[SIZE=14pt]FYI.... All turtles can carry Salimonlia.... snakes can also. ALSO wash hands after you play with them. I have a snake and a box turtle.[/SIZE]

Can you post a picture of a Painted Turtle???? Never heard of them.

April

 

[MountainMeadows]

Yep, pretty darn cool and boy does it bring back memories. As a kid I could hardly wait till school was out and then I would get shipped off to my grandparents house in Sandpoint, Idaho for the summer. There was a Ben Franklin dime store there and it was my first stop to buy a turtle - we would paint flowers and other neat designs on their shells and at the end of the summer would let them go in our lake/creek - they would grow up to be big turtles and would hang out on the end of the logs that made up our boat-house. Those were "the good old days" - didn't have a TV, the phone was a party line, didn't wear shoes for the entire summer, had plenty of chores, had to pick my own willow switch if I got into trouble, slept like a log all night and up at dawn to do it all over again.

Thanks for the flashback - it is funny how some things will bring back such strong memories

:

 

[Just Us N Texas]

Mountain Meadows, you just described basically what my childhood was like! Yes, I have had my share of painted turtles, but the other day my grandson picked up a large terrapin, and I made him put it back. Afterwards, I thought of all the fun I was depriving him.

 

[MyBarakah]

Hi guys!

Well.... I talked to a turtle expert..... and he said like with "anything" if you're not careful you can pick up the sallamanilla.....but if you was your hands every times you handle them..... you are fine..... he said it's just like with any animal..... I guess the reason you could get that is because of them going in thier cage/habitate and if they step in it.... the same goes with any animal & feeces.... So after hearing that.... it didn't bother me a bit.....

The female turtle, since she is a wild turtle..... I did take a picture of her 2 days before she laid the eggs when she was trying to cross my drive way.....when I get done with my R show this weekend... on Sunday (I"m BEAT!!!! and it's 11pm).... I will have to shrink the photo down.......but she's a BIG turtle I would say about the size of a dinner plate or hair smaller.... but a good sized one.... but where she's out in the wild and not confined..... they will grow to normal size. Now the babies that are in the septic pond.... they are ALLLL the same size so I know they came all from one litter.... and turtles can lay 2 batches a year if I read that right?....... The babies in the pond are probally 3 or 4" wide & round... little bitty things...... they are SO cute though! I need to mark where the momma turtle put the nest in the ground.... I barely recognized it today when I went back to check after work....Boy..... she really knows how to cover her tracks!

If anyone wants a couple little turtles (once they hatch) I can bring some down to Nationals! :bgrin

I will post pictures on Sunday!!

 

[Soggy Bottom Ranch]

That does sound cool! I bet the kids will love it if those eggs hatch out!

 

[sdmini]

Yep we use to catch painted turtles every year, paint numbers on their backs and have turtle races. Boy we were an easily amused lot weren't we?

:

We also kept baby snapping turtles as pets, never lasted long. Got tired of killing flies for them so back to the creek they went. We had the same plastic container with the "realistic" plastic palm tree on it.