Habitat - Outdoor :: Outdoor turtle spends all of time on dry land

[Lunette008]

Ok, so I put my RES in our newly built pond a couple weeks ago and she stayed in the water for a few days but then she decided to explore her enclosure. She found a bush she liked and buried herself under some leaves and then she did not move from that spot for almost 2 weeks! Then she moved to a new bush, buried herself under some different leaves.

I am worried cuz obviously if she is not in her pond, then she is not eating. But I don't want to disturb her if she is doing something important.

I thought maybe she is laying eggs, so I read up on that, felt her bottom, and I don't think I feel any eggs.

So my other thought was maybe she is hibernating, but I live in San Diego, CA and the weather has been quite nice! Although we did bring her outdoors for the first time, during the day the water is in the mid 80's but at night it dips into the 70's where as her aquarium was always in the 80's.

So, any thoughts? Should I pluck her out and put her back in the pond? Or continue to let her hang out under the bushes?

[Raphulk]

are you sure she is spending her 24/7 on land? maybe she dips into the pond for a while and goes to her bush again?

[Lunette008]

I mean, yes I guess that is possible, but I have tried checking at various times and she is always under the bush, plus she is always in the EXACT same place under the bush and I figure if she were coming and going the location might vary just slightly.

[Raphulk]

hmm. yea, youre probably right. if you think she is hibernating (which i highly doubt) you shouldnt let her.

i have no clue what could be happening, hopefully someone else will

[steve]

How many gallons is the pond? What is the water temperature?

[notbrigum]

'Super Swimmer' our ~8y/o female RES acted in a similiar manner when we acquired her and placed her in her new home in our back yard. She would crawl out of the water and hide under the bushes and decomposing leaves against our slump block wall (very warm place to be if you don't live in the SW). Some months later, she seems very content, healthy, and acts very much like a semi wild RES should. In looking back over what we did wrong and right I'll suggest the following ideas, see if any make sense in your situation; general shock of being moved from happy place to a new unknown environment, a poor quality environment (we had shell rot ), confusion over going from a warm stable inside environment to outside daytime highs and nighttime lows, having enough room to move around in (how big is the pond outside?), possible? egg laying behavior, attempts at drying out/rubbing on things to shed?
Ultimatley we put ours in better environments. The second one was a fully contained, 300g outdoor, filtered 'kiddie' pool with a floating dock for sunning so we took away her ability to roam the yard. Her third home does allow her to roam the yard but she's rarely more than 6" from the safety of the water even though she knows her previous favorite hiding spots are but a few feet away. I don't know what she'd be doing if we'd left her alone. We think.. she didn't like her first home as it really wasn't very turtle friendly or clean.
So, is this pond she's in a clean and healthy, living pond? I assume it's not stagnant? Skippy filters, gotta love em!
Long note, but ideas. Hope it helps. Regards.

[Lunette008]

Ok, well my pond is about 250 gallons. It is very clean, we did have some algae problems, but we bought a UV filter and that cleared it right up and we took care of that long before we put in the turtle. The water is not stagnant at all, we have a waterfall at one end of the pond (that also acts as a filter).

We really tried to make it as turtle friendly as possible, we went for a very natural feel. It is about 2ft deep in the deep end and only inches deep in the shallow end. We included some rocks for basking as well as her favorite fake log (from when she was in an aquarium). She does have a pretty decent sized section out of the pond to roam around in, probably 5 x 10 feet. We also have some floating water hyacinth that she can hide under.

The water temp is usually like 85F during the day, once I checked it at 4am and it was 72F so it does get colder at night than she is used to.

[steve]

I think notbrigum has a good point that this is a much different environment for her. Even though it sounds like a fantastic pond, she's not just accustomed to it.

She would not be hibernating out of water, or be taking that long to nest. When my turtles are outside, they would bury themselves if it was too cold or warm. If she has a basking area in the pond, is there a way you can prevent her from getting out of there?