help turtle found in road - need id and advice

[fourtorts]

I am posting for a lady who has rung me as she has found a turtle (i think it is ) in the road and needs help on what it is and how to care for it whilst she is trying to find the owner. I would very much appreciate someone contacting her if you pm me I can give you her email address or phone number.
Hope someone can help heres the pics looks a nice fella....
http://upload8.postimage.org/308132/fred11052007003.jpg (http://upload8.postimage.org/308132/photo_hosting.html)

[egyptiandan64]

Hi Lynne,
Your friend has found a female Red-eared slider :D

Danny

[fourtorts]

thanx dan... is there anyone in uk who is willing to contact mandy with help on feeding and housing

[bruceleetortoise]

im quite sure it is a red eared slider aka a terrapin, i am not an expert although i did have a few of these at one time i would happily try and give her some advice.

they should be in a fairly decent sized tank, 10gallons for every inch on shell, and should also have an area they can come out of the water should they want to, also should have a basking light over this area, and also a uv light.
she will be able to buy turtle pellets from any petshop, feed these to the turtle, and fish, meat, prawns, and maybe some veg could also be fed to it also.

pm me should you require anymore info..

[fourtorts]

thanx very much darren.. I'll pass on the info, The lady has put it in her pond this pm, she took the fish out though because I thought it would eat them.
I told her about this site and she is currently awaiting access. She has never had anything to do with turtles and I only know about torts. It is being kept in her conservatory at the moment.

[bruceleetortoise]

yes chances are it would eat her fish, so if she doesnt want to lose them put them somewere else ot put the turtle somewere else!!

does she plan on keeping the turtle??? if so just go by what i said and read more on the forum she will get lots of info about the upkeep of turtles.

pm me if you need more info.

[fourtorts]

I think she is planning on keeping it if the owner can't be found. She should be registered on shelled warriors by now. Unfortunately i don't know anything about turtles. Although looking at the picture it is about 10" long and has obviously been looked after really well. I am concerned that because we don't know what it has been fed on it may have an adverse effect on it changing it's food.
I feel sorry for the person who has lost it I bet they put it out cos of the good weather and it managed to find an escape route they must be worried as she has had the turtle since Sunday. Luckily she found shelled warriors on the net and contacted me as i live in the same town. She has also contacted the police ,vets, and houses on adjoining roads. this turtle is really lucky as the road it was found on was a busy one.

[Fred]

Hi I am new to this so hope this turns out ok. We have decided that we cannot give our found turtle the home which she deserves but not sure what to do next. She has not eaten much since we found her last week and we are getting really concerned, although she is still quite lively.

Any advice would be much appreciated on what to do next or who to contact.

[KayMarie]

Well you could wait and see if anyone comes forward for him/her and then go from there... You could ring the RSPCA or Tortoise Trust and see what they advice or you could re home him/her on here. I'm sure there are plenty of people on here with experience in keeping turtles...

Its up to you...

[bruceleetortoise]

if you cant keep it, then just do what kaymarie has said, ring the rspca or re-home it, where abouts are you?? if it wasnt far from me i would be willing to look after it, but depends where you are!!

[leggy]

try reptile forums shelled section,theres a couple of people that rehome terrapins on there.they travel from norhern england to scotland or london.

[Graham]

Any advice would be much appreciated on what to do next or who to contact.

What area are you in?

Edit: OK, just seen that Lynn says you're in Chesterfield, should have read more carefully!

You could try contacting lincolnshire_turtle_rescue@msn.com, they would collect from your area.

[Fred]

Thanks for the advice I have emailed the turtle rescue today so will wait to hear from them.

[Fred]

We have come to the conclusion that nobody is going to claim our Red Eared Slider and are hoping that someone on this forum could offer her a knowledgable home. Please contact me if you can as I am getting really worried about her not eating and not really sure what I'm doing. :(

[Graham]

What are you feeding her? Are you putting the food in the water? They will normally only eat in the water, and often only floating food, depending on how she's been kept and fed she may not even recognise what you are giving her as food!
The Red Belly that I recently gave a new home to took 3 weeks to get onto the balanced diet that I wanted her to eat, for the first week she'd eat nothing but dried shrimp, and then only reluctantly.
The trick is to try a variety of foods, raw lean meat, fish, Koi pellets, pond snails and vegetation (which she may be eating already without you knowing!). It's unlikely she'll starve herself to death, if what you're giving her is edible she will eat it eventually when she gets hungry enough, but they can go weeks without food.

Did you not get a reply from Turtle Rescue?

You might try some other rescue centres from this list http://www.animalrescuers.co.uk/html/reptilesetc.html

[chris_walton]

hi fourtorts


have you spoken to (tpg)ali about this as im having de ja vue reading this thread only she phoned me up the other day asking me if i would rehome this same slider


chris x x

[fourtorts]

Hi, Does anyone know what happened to this turtle as I have emailed the lady and haven't had a reply. I would love to know the outcome...

[Lloyd]

graham youre are quit right im saying it will only eat in water , but that is because it can only eat in water as turtles have no tongue and use the water to swallow, as for floating food ive never found a turtle that will only eat floating food they should quite happily eat whether the food is floating or submerged.

Also Please please dont cal the rspca they are a clueless bunch and will more than likely put it down for no reason at all, i had a chinese softshell brought to me by them and they told me they thought it was a red ear with really bad mbd!!!!! muppets.

Hope youve found her a home now fred.

:D

[Graham]

they should quite happily eat whether the food is floating or submerged.

True, they should eat both floating and sunken food, but depending on how they've been fed before they may not recognise sunken food and may only eat floating food.
I had a RES that I looked after for a few weeks and it would only eat floating food, once the food had sunk it showed no interest at all, it would investigate it on the bottom of the tank then go back to looking for floating food!