Turtle, 🐢

@ruouttaurmind He’s worth it. Box turtles are great.

@ruouttaurmind Actually I asked her if I could put him in the woods behind her house and she offered the garden. She is very animal friendly!

And turtles are worth it!!!

BTW, Charlie is paranoid to got in the yard. He keeps peeking over where the turtle was before going down the stairs

@ruouttaurmind @tinamarie1974
I remember having box turtles in our yard in N St. L (Florissant) when I was a kid. Almost always had one in the fenced yard most of the summer. The dog would try to snuffle around it and of course the turtle would close up shop so the dog would get bored and move on. Once he started to move again, dog would return… lather, rinse, repeat…

@ruouttaurmind @tinamarie1974
OTOH the one time we had a toad show up the dog tried to grab it in his mouth. He COULD NOT spit it out fast enough! Spent the rest of the afternoon drooling/spitting up foamy stuff. Never fucked with another frog/toad that I know of. As they say locally…“That’ll learn ya durn ya”!

@chienfou aawwww they must have needed to cool off. Do you have the little wildlife floaters in the pool?

@chienfou @tinamarie1974 Is that a box turtle? I didn’t know they could swim. We have a frog ramp and it’s almost eliminated frog corpses.

@tinamarie1974

Do you have the little wildlife floaters in the pool?

Yeah… two of them in the pictures above…!
All kidding aside, I generally check the pool first thing in the AM and rarely find a non-living critter in the pool (except flying (biting) ants that can all drown as far as I’m concerned!) I can use the skimmer to get them out and re-locate them elsewhere in the yard. I used the skimmer on the flying ants that were still alive on the surface the other day then dumped them into the goldfish pond as a treat. They (the fish, not the ants) were happy for the snacks.

@sammydog01 @tinamarie1974
I’ve looked at them but never put any in. I rarely have drowned frogs, but will occasionally/rarely have a drowned mouse or mole. Chickens love that…

@chienfou @tinamarie1974 We used to have a lot of dead frogs so it’s nice. Didn’t help the bunnies though.

@mike808 you stay away from my hood with your soup pot

@mike808 SO. VERY. WRONG!

Hmm. Looks like someone else likes turtle soup.
Is the doggie from New Orleans too?

@mike808 doggo is afraid enough not to get too close but still curious about what is in his yard.

@tinamarie1974 Looking for a place to lay eggs? You can tell if it’s a girl by its eye color.

@sammydog01 not sure, he/she had been to all my neighbors houses and ended up back in my yard. I haven’t seen its face just yet.

Ill go take a peak under the bbq grill in a bit and see if I can figure anything out

@sammydog01 just had crazy rain, wonder if he/she was preparing and taking shelter??

Hanging out by the BBQ pit? Hmm. Maybe it’s trying to tell you something. Grilled turtle probably ain’t half bad.

@mike808 there is something wrong with you

@sammydog01 @tinamarie1974 Yup, Brown eyed women.
Coincidentally, that’s the name of a song…

By a group that came to mind because of their long time association with our shelled friends. Here’s an album cover of theirs from my youth, in 1977

@ELJAY @sammydog01 awww that is so cute!!

@ELJAY @tinamarie1974 Is she digging? I bet baby box turtles are adorable.

@ELJAY @sammydog01 not sure I didn’t go out and look last night. It was raining pretty hard and I didn’t want to spook it and have it move. Ill check some time today.

@ELJAY @sammydog01 and I would ❤❤❤ baby turtles in the yard

@tinamarie1974 Beautiful creature!

@Kyeh I think she has taken up residence at this point!

@tinamarie1974 Are you sure it is a “he”? It was referred to it as a “she” earlier.

You should put it on a Ouija board and ask it what pronouns we should use.

@mike808 nope, no idea so I go back and forth. This way 50% of the time I am right

I have been checking the spots I find her to see if there are eggs, so far no luck

@tinamarie1974 Just clear your search history if you google “how to sex a turtle”.

@tinamarie1974 I looked it up and her coloring looks female but her shell shape looks male, so I give up.

@sammydog01 @GrandmaLyn so then maybe female? Check out the second pic I posted at the very top

@GrandmaLyn So IF the first photo on the table is of the rear end then it is a female.

@GrandmaLyn @Kidsandliz i think the second pic is the rear. I think the first pic is the front

@GrandmaLyn @tinamarie1974 I see what you mean. Makes sense the head end would be higher. The rear end doesn’t really look all that raised (of course we don’t see what the underside looks like to see if it is curved away) so maybe male then.

EDIT
OK according to this it looks like you have to tell from the turtle underside. So next time you see it and can get at it, pick it up and look at its underside.

https://theturtlehub.com/how-to-tell-the-gender-of-a-box-turtle/

@Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974 Yeah, you have to flip them over and look at the area around the tail. The above pictures are actually not the way I checked, but maybe it depends on the species. My turtles clearly had inwardly angled shells around the tail/anus, or open shells. They were your typical Floridian turtles.

@GrandmaLyn @Kidsandliz next time I see her I will take a peek. She seems to have left again, waiting to see which neighbor spots her first

@GrandmaLyn Do you know a lot about turtles in general? I have a water turtle I can’t identify.

@sammydog01 Not generally. But maybe if you post a picture we could all try to identify your little guy.

@GrandmaLyn She’s from central Virginia:

I thought she was a river cooter and when a local wildlife center was looking for one I took her over. They said she wasn’t. Looks like some turtles cross breed but I haven’t figured her out yet.

@sammydog01 she is a beauty

@sammydog01 She looks large, so probably at least a couple of years old. And the lack of an inward slope on the shell near the tail makes me think it’s a female. She looks a lot like the ones I raised, although her shell is a bit darker or dingy. It could be covered in algae. I think it might be an Eastern chicken turtle (Deirochelys reticularia reticularia). Check out this page: https://www.boxturtles.com/florida-turtles
Hope that helps!

@GrandmaLyn She’s definitely a girl, she laid eggs a couple of times. I’ve had her for 30 years. She looks similar but has a regular length neck (you can’t tell from the photos). She has a lot of orange in her shell which is throwing me off. Her shell is about 8 inches long.

@GrandmaLyn @sammydog01
So you’ve had baby turtles???

@GrandmaLyn @Kyeh Nope one of them ate the eggs.

@GrandmaLyn @Kyeh @sammydog01

@sammydog01 @Kyeh My turtles never laid eggs. I’d say sammydog01 is the expert here! Baby turtles are the cutest tho.

@GrandmaLyn @sammydog01 @tinamarie1974
One of them? Do you have several turtles?

@GrandmaLyn @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 They are supposed to lay eggs on land and mine are in a tank so I don’t think baby turtles were going to happen. I have a male red eared slider and a male painted turtle I got at the same time.

PSA: TURTLES MAKE TERRIBLE PETS. THEY SMELL AND ARE MESSY AND LIVE WAAAAY TOO LONG. In my opinion anyway. I hope they don’t outlive me.

@macromeh I mean, who doesn’t like turtles?

@macromeh hahahaha!! I like turtles too!!

@mehcuda67

You can get turtle boxers…

@mike808 she/he disappeared again. Have to wait for it to come back.

@tinamarie1974 Yay! Watch for digging!

@sammydog01 I guess I can google it but do you know what time of year they lay eggs?

@tinamarie1974 One Google site says May through July. So maybe?