Mac happened across a turtle in our backyard a few weeks ago (it is now Sept 6, 2004). From then on the only peace Tubby had was at night and during school. Otherwise he was handled almost continuously. Mac just loves that turtle.

Mac is quite the animal enthusiast. He reads a lot and there isn't an animal related television show that he hasn't seen at least twice. We have plenty of books around, and of course some are animal related. He found his reptile related books and discovered it was a young Eastern Box Turtle, which was given the name Tubby. Tubby is about an inch and a half in diameter.

He began his quest to learn all he could about Eastern Box Turtles (I must stress the Eastern Box part. I have been corrected more than once that it's not just a turtle). He searched the internet, collecting links, and found lots of information he shared with me (food was our major concern).

Turtle pen

Included in these internet searches was how to build a turtle pen. Now Tubby needs a home (oh, wonderful, I went into the delay for time mode that parents do when trying to get out of something). I wasn't yet convinced that Tubby was going to be around long so I wasn't about to go invest time and money in a pen, at least not yet.

Then wouldn't you know it, someone found another Eastern Box Turtle at Mac's school. A grown one at that. Well guess where this turtle is now! That's right, my house. The grown one is going to live at the school as a class pet most of the time, but when school is out he'll come live at my house (wonderful!). I now resign myself to the fact that I'll be building a turtle pen.

Sparkles

Teri and the kids went out of town and I stayed home to build the pen. Mac found some instructions on the internet on how to build one. It looked easy enough. I went and purchased the materials and went to work.

I finally finished it after a day and a half. I'm not in that good of shape anymore and two days of bending over took its toll. I have blisters and hurt all over. The hard part was getting the brick ledge recessed into the ground, working around the vertical posts that secured the enclosure to the ground. But I did it!

I placed the turtles in their new home. I kept a watch on them for a while until I was confident they couldn't get out. I then checked on them once in a while just to see how they were doing.

On one check I couldn't find Tubby. I panicked. I searched the pen over for about 10 minutes and couldn't find him. Oh, how could this happen. Mac was going to be very upset with me for allowing him to get away. Well, I did find him, buried in the dirt. I don't know how I didn't squash him. All was well again. Until...

without the top

I checked on them again later on. Again Tubby was missing. I didn't worry about it until several hours later and I still hadn't seen him. I made another very thorough search, but no Tubby. I as sure he had gotten loose. Mac was getting upset, so later that evening I began checking every crevese and spot of loose dirt I could find. Finally, I found him. He had dug down at the edge of where I had recessed the brick and dug underneath the grass, about an inch and a half deep. It was just luck that I ran across him.

All was well again and now I'm quite confident in the pen keeping them in. It's been two days now the turtles have been in their new home and seem to be adjusting well.

 

[UPDATE: 19-Oct-2004] - Tubby's Home!....well, maybe. As mentioned before Tubby disappeared a while back. Today our niece who lives next door to us found a small box turtle in their backyard. There is some debate as to whether this is Tubby or not. My opinion is it's not, but I'm not real sure. This turtle seems to be larger and darker. In any case we are now back up to two turtles.

[UPDATE: 27-Sep-2004] - Sparkles (the adult turtle) is back from school. It seems the move was temporary and so now there is a turtle living in the turtle pen. Seems Sparkles likes only worms and cantelope. Heck of diet ain't it.]

[UPDATE: 18-Sep-2004] - Tubby has gone missing. I have to think something got him, or helped him out of the pen (sigh). I guess we'll have to find another one. I hate all that effort on a pen may be wasted]