Turtles in Ponds

[skewbald]

Sorry to be thick here (ha. ha. haaa!!!) but, I see some of you keep your turtles in ponds. Do you literally just keep them in the pond outside like you would a goldfish? What I mean is, are they ok with the climate? Or do you need lamps and things? If they live on land too, don't they wander off?

OK... I'm going to openly blush at the stupidness of my post :oops:

As you can tell, I know nothing about turtles, but they look beautiful and fascinating and I'm a gemini and need to know everything about everything...

Verity xxx

[Pussygalore]

I,m a newcommer to keeping them but mine which are last years hatclings and are yellow bellies go out in the pond on decent days and I bring them in at night but I understand that eventually they will be able to stay out all the year round as long as the water is deep enough I beleive they are able to tolerate our climate quite well or at least certain varietys, as for wandering off mine at the moment just sit on a rock although they can,t get out of the pond at present beacuse of the sides however you can always fence in around the pond just like a tort enclosure, they need the daylight to do well and can be messy in tanks so need good filtration systems, I just have a good external box filter on the pump as a means of circulating the water, plus they seem to grow very fast and I think there,d come a time when a pond is the only option a lot of adults seem to be released into the wild because they get to big, besides I don,t like to see animals kept in tiny areas.

[skewbald]

Ahhhhh. I see. Thankyou for that. I'm with you, its much better to give them as much space as possible. Fascinating.

Thanks very much for taking the time to answer.

Verity x

[Pussygalore]

they grow a lot faster than tortoises I suppose because there diet is much richer ( I,m guessing on that ) mine were the size of a 50p when I got them at the last year they are now my palm size, when we got them we knew we would have to put a pond in for them either indoor or out as they would be to big for a tank at some point, mind you I think they,d eat any fish that was in the pond so it has to be for them alone.

[leggy]

we are in slow process of building a pond for our yellowbellies ,they and red-eared sliders can survive all year round as they do this in canals and ponds around the uk.the pond has to be 2ft deep roughly so they can hibernate in bottom in winter.roughly one basking/haul out point per turtle.to stop them wandering off you have to fence off the pond with tall log roll or something they cannot climb/burrow under.graham on here is a wealth of knowledge on ponds and keeping turtles,also try the terrapin tank forum,its uk based.