Zelda

February 2007 one of our neighbors offered to give our oldest son their turtle, tank and all. They just wanted to get rid of it. We said ok, not knowing that it would end up being a rescue. The neighbor kid had plucked this turtle out of his backyard in September. They stuck it in a 10 inch glass aquarium. The bottom was filled with aquarium rocks. Below the rocks you could see the urine from the turtle and mold growing. It was gross, it stank. They only fed the turtle lettuce and carrots and these turtle pellets from wally world. They thought it was a snapping turtle, just because it snapped at their dog once. Speaking of dogs, they told us that the turtle was used to dogs so we could let it out to play with our dogs. WTH?!

I immediately used my friend Google to find out what kind of turtle we did have. What kind of living conditions it needed to be in. What kind of food we needed to feed it. This turtle would hardly move. It didn't really eat. I was afraid it was dying. After all of my research on the internet I figured out it was a female 3 toed box turtle. I went out and bought a 50 gal rubber maid tub. Drove 70miles to our nearest Petco to get the appropriate type of substrate, a uvb lamp, and wax worms.This is the habitat we made for her.
It only took a couple of days and she perked right up.
She enjoyed her worms...
She loved her new home.Our oldest named her Zelda. He knew that we were not going to keep her.In late spring we planned on releasing her back out into the wild where she belonged. One day in the begging of June Luke started barking like mad. We went out back to see what he was barking at. It was a male 3 toed box turtle. We brought him inside, put him with Zelda, and named him Link. We kept them for just a couple more days and then released them both into the forest.
I have always liked turtles. After rescuing a turtle and taking care of one I now have a soft spot for them.
I miss her.