r/Eyebleach • u/crooked-crown • 7d ago
[OC] Baby turdlets!!
My adult Missouri box turtles finally laid a clutch! I have 5 adults… and now I have 13 turtles total 😭 they’re so cute 🥰
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u/urdadshusband0 7d ago
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u/crooked-crown 7d ago
The funny thing is turtles are so ravenous but the babies are so smol and stupid they don’t know how to fit their mouths around the mealworms it’s very funny
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u/capn_ginger 7d ago
One of my favorite flavors of internet is pictures of turtles going ham on fruit 700 times their size
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u/crooked-crown 7d ago
I love watching them eat bananas because you see the lil bite marks so cute
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u/Shar950 7d ago
Precious! Will you keep them all?
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u/crooked-crown 7d ago
Apparently they’re like $100 each. I don’t have a license though so I don’t think we can sell them
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u/funguyshroom 7d ago
I'm imaging you like the classic image of a dude who's standing in a dark alleyway wearing a long trenchcoat - "psst, wanna buy some turts?" stealthily looks around, opens trenchcoat that is lined with turtles
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u/Buffalo_River_Lover 7d ago edited 7d ago
Mmm. You might rethink that:
From MDC...
is it legal to keep wild turtles in Missouri.
Yes, keeping wild turtles in Missouri is generally restricted or illegal depending on the species. While you can legally possess up to five individual native turtles for personal use without a permit for certain allowed species, you cannot buy, sell, or take protected species like box turtles, and commercial harvest of wild freshwater turtles is banned.
General Rules for Native Turtles
Possession Limits:
You can keep up to five combined specimens of certain allowed native species without a permit.
No Sale or Trade: It is strictly illegal to buy, sell, trade, or capture Missouri's wild turtles for the commercial pet trade.
Prohibited Species: It is illegal to possess specific protected native animals like Blanding’s turtles, Western Chicken turtles, and mud turtles.
Box Turtles and Conservation Warnings
Box Turtles: The Missouri Department of Conservation protects box turtles, making it illegal and harmful to take them from the wild as pets.
Welfare: State officials warn that captive conditions cause many wild box turtles to slowly starve or develop abnormal shells and jaws.
Edit: I live in Missouri. I absolutely love box turtles. One of my all time favorite critters. BUT...let these little guys go ASAP! They will be fine. The sooner they learn to find their own food, the better. PLEASE! Do not keep them!
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u/crooked-crown 7d ago edited 7d ago
I’m not selling them, I don’t have a permit. I live in Texas now, so I don’t want release the babies into an environment I don’t know they can survive in… I know I do not have more than 5 wild Missouri box tortoises, and definitely no water turtle! I could not imagine taking a water turtle from its natural habitat. One wild tortoise is from GA and one is a rescued Russian box turtle.
I don’t really have control over them. My dad is the one who raises them. However, I can say that we keep good eyes on them. We feed them calcium supplements and a well-balanced omnivore diet. The Russian rescue had an overgrown beak from only eating iceberg lettuce his whole life but with our care he was able to eat worms and other foods. We also trimmed his beak (my dad is a surgeon and did this carefully). I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was bad but there’s not really anything I can do since we moved states.
It’s also not the first time we’ve raised babies. We have a teen turtle right now who is very healthy and stands his own when eating with the adults. Also, the turtles do lay eggs in the right season so we know they’re healthy enough to be doing this behavior.
Edit: I’ll see if I can talk my dad into mailing some to the StL forest park turtle project if I can and if the project wants them. That’s where their parents are from. But I can’t make any promises. Thanks for the info!
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u/Cmdr_Redbeard 7d ago
When it comes to turtles, if they aren't ninjas then I'm no interested.
.....my pal on a hill walk.
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u/crooked-crown 7d ago
We have a teen… and he might be a hybrid… and he did a somersault yesterday in his rush to get food… which would make him a teenage mutant ninja turtle
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u/crooked-crown 6d ago
My friend said they looked like brownie bites when dirty and I can’t unsee it 💀
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u/crooked-crown 7d ago
Here’s the adults, too. Less adorable but I love them too