(relaxed rhythmic music)
- Okay, well I'm here with two turtles right now.
This is Harriett, my personal little eastern box turtle.
And this is a new guy.
These are the same species.
This is a male and a female.
I don't exactly know his age.
I think we have it somewhere.
So right off the bat,
if you've seen box turtles before,
you might notice there are some different
things going on with him,
especially with the shape of his shell
and maybe a little something on his face,
which we'll get to,
but overall, this is really exciting
cause I love box turtles especially
and we get to actually care for one now.
But probably your first question is
where did he originate from?
Well back in the day, wherever he probably came from,
that person probably took him from the wild.
So I'm sure he is wild caught.
Box turtles are really never bred,
especially the eastern boxes
but the people that we got him from
had him since he was a teeny tiny thing,
smaller than Harriett.
So basically if you would suggest to release him,
it would just be more dangerous for him in the long run
even though it might sound good
to get back into that environment,
he is completely adapted to indoors human care
and it's surprising just how much
they adapt and change to that
to where they will not thrive
in the wild pretty much at all.
He'd probably survive for like a week.
I don't know.
Maybe longer.
So you can kinda think of this as an episode two
to the other video we did
with a really old bearded dragon we have
chilling back there.
We're obviously just introduced you to him,
showed him some interesting things.
His different issues and stuff along the way.
So this is like the next one.
This is an animal that was given to Emerald Scales.
If you don't know,
that's where we sell and re-home animals
at emeraldscales.com.
If you're watching this as I upload it,
we're about to go to Repticon
so the site is completely empty.
But if you're watching this in advance,
you can check the site out
and there should be some cool animals.
But we are posting stuff within about a week,
right after Repticon, so you can wait for that
if you're looking for a new animal.
So somebody reached out to us with this guy
and so unfortunately, this turtle himself
is not an example of how you should raise a turtle.
But luckily, the owners are an example
of what you should do if you cannot keep the turtle
because they did responsibly find a home for him
which was here for us to help him out.
And they were aware of some of the husbandry issues
as he was growing up
because most of their long term health
is determined by how they're cared for
when they're very small.
Because two big things for them are diet
and the actual husbandry of the enclosure
which really effect the shape and health of the animal.
The first thing you probably see here is,
he's got this big divot.
It looks like someone just like took a mallet
to him and started hitting him.
Luckily he didn't go through that
and he doesn't seem to be in any pain
but it can sometimes get so severe
to where they are unable to survive
or they're in a lot of pain.
So luckily he is not there
but it's still not a great thing to see, of course.
Unfortunately, metabolic bone disease,
which is what it's called,
when they're unable to absorb calcium
or just not given the right amount of calcium.
It's when their bones,
which I guess the shell is considered a bone,
does not develop properly.
So although if he continues to grow,
which he's pretty large right now,
so at his point
because he's probably just about done growing,
it means it can't improve
but it also can't get worse at this point
although UVB and everything is important.
Harriet's finally checking him out.
So Harriet is a very young box turtle,
so I can't show her as an example either
because she's not a full grown,
but I'll show some images to compare.
Basically the shape that you'll go for with a box turtle,
called a box turtle cause they can
pack themselves up like a box,
so luckily it looks like his flaps
on the base work no problem.
Now he's so outgoing and used to people
that I've never actually seen him go
in his shell entirely, but those flaps can just
kinda fold up if he does choose to do that.
The other big issue with him, which is not as severe
of an issue right now, and it is fixable,
is his beak on the end.
This is just an overgrown beak,
which can happen in any animal with a beak.
Most commonly you'll see it in birds and things
if they're not given the right stuff to chew on
or a roughly incorrect diet or whatever,
but the weird thing is, box turtles generally have
a pretty mushy diet overall, so I'm kinda surprised
that he would actually have that issue arise.
For example, our general diet for them is a little bit
of fruit, a lot of veggies, different pellets,
and a lot of different insects and protein,
and I'm very curious to see if he'll walk
off the end of the table,
because it's always different with every animal.
Harriet's never been so interested
in another animal; she doesn't know that's for people.
So in a lot of different animals,
you can usually just fix the beak
if it's just a little bit overgrown
by adding things like cava bones,
which you'll see usually advertised for birds,
but they're also for turtles just fine.
I give Franklin cava bone and some of the other turtles,
and if it's really extreme you can end up
just filing it down yourself,
but we'll get to that, we're gonna do that
later in the week and we'll try and film that
and show you how it goes.
Luckily it seems pretty simple, and basically that
and then one example of what a very long beak can cause
is just trouble eating.
Thankfully he had no issues eating right now,
so it looks like he's essentially just adapted around it,
but once that beak is gone, it's probably gonna feel so good
and he's gonna be able to just eat so well,
just like getting your braces off or something,
so I'm sure he'll enjoy that.
But we'll get to that when we get a chance to.
So like I said, these are both Eastern box turtles
but they look crazy different other than the size.
But even Harriet here, they start out
in a very different shape than they do as an adult.
It can be pretty hard to ID the very tiny turtles
if it's not something you're used to doing
because they just look so similar,
just like a flat, darkish colored turtle,
but over time they will develop
different colors and patterns.
Harriet, though, is a female
and this is a male, which means that they
do just have some differences that will never be similar,
no matter how big Harriet gets,
which includes the beautiful colors
that you see on this guy.
His eyes are bright red, which is almost always
a sign that they're a male.
He has very bright yellow colors.
Males also just have a more of an arc
on the plastron so that they can
more easily mount a female turtle,
but by far the biggest change are those colors,
so Harriet's gonna be kind of a bland, earthy brown
probably her entire life, although she
can develop more pattern.
You can already see some different
spots kind of showing up there,
which look pretty cool.
(turtle bites)
Okay, well these two are enjoying
their little spaghetti date together
with a poor Nightcrawler that had to be the victim.
Harriet was the first one to take it.
I was kind of surprised, well I wasn't surprised,
cause she goes for everything, she didn't care
how big it was, she just chomped straight in
and ripped it apart, and then he followed suit.
And you actually could see, the trouble he was having
with that beak on the front, like he couldn't
get his face low enough cause it just kept getting hit
on the table, but he did figure it out.
Luckily that won't be a problem next week.
I'm sure he'll appreciate that.
Especially where when they're so close,
you can just really see the differences.
Other than the beak, the shape
of the head is pretty much identical.
The eyes are very similar, other than color,
kind of where the spots are
and obviously where the ears are located,
but the color and pattern is just like complete opposites.
So which do you prefer?
Do you have a preference?
Sometimes I like the dark, minimalist theme,
but in this case I do think the bright
box turtles are a little cooler.
No offense, Harriet, I'm sorry.
Something else I've noticed with box turtles,
they're native to North Carolina so I get the chance
to find them a lot and relocate em
and stuff when they're on roads,
and they're always just so outgoing.
Like sliders are usually crazy and like scared,
but box turtles for some reason, they're just...
(turtle squeaks)
Much more chill.
Basically any box turtle, if you pick one up on the road,
of course just be careful cause they can bite,
but most of the time they'll just poke their head out
and kinda like swim in the air
and be like hey what's going on,
with not a care in the world,
and once they're set back down
they don't freak out, they don't have to sit there
for ten minutes waiting for you to go away,
they just keep walking along on their way.
And they do have crazy strong shells.
Unfortunately it's not strong enough for a car or something,
however they do frequently survive the car crashes
or car run-vers, running, they get hit by a car,
and then they need surgery. (laughs)
Uh, so I'm sure that's expensive.
I don't know why I'm mentioning this.
Something else fun with box turtles
is why I love them is they are omnivorous,
so they can just eat anything.
Insects, plants, vegetables.
Or, vegetables are plants.
They can eat pretty much anything,
whether it's insects or fruit or vegetables,
because we have some turtles here
that are entirely herbivorous,
but it's more fun to be able to give them variety
and it's a bit easier to make a balanced diet
when there are so many options,
and then you can just do stuff like pellets,
which we frequently do but they definitely seem
to enjoy the different flavors and colors,
which is something else really cool.
Like I just, I don't think it's up yet,
but we filmed that video of the tortoises
and turtles having a picnic outside.
Actually it's on Amino now, if you wanna see that.
There's so much blood on the table.
That's terrifying.
Just hanging out.
The worm is like a glove over her bottom jaw.
It's also very cool to see how friendly they are
with each other.
They seem to be equally, if not more chill,
with one another as they are with a new person.
So although this is their first time being together,
and we're supervising everything,
if for some reason they were housed
in the same enclosure, which they won't be,
I think they would probably get along just fine,
as long as they don't steal each other's food.
But, we won't be doing that. (laughs)
Also, on the back of his turtle,
I'll turn him around,
right where the lump is, there's also a lot
of different coloration right around.
We had to give him a bath yesterday
because he didn't smell great.
I think he pooped on the way home,
so I dunno if it was that
or if it was older stuff on him,
but either way, that all came off
as plastron and everything,
but there's this weird kind of just brown,
it looks like he was like in a mud puddle
or something, so it doesn't come off when I scrape it,
so I dunno if that's just a form of shell rot.
I don't imagine it would be, cause usually you see
shell rot on the lower parts that are
directly touching the substrate,
and Harriet's freaking out.
Can't get that, oh she got it.
So, like you'll see, that's not something
that you see on Harriet.
You can kinda see a texture in it,
but there isn't usually that much color,
so we'll see if that comes off over time
or whatever else, but I will need
to use the toothbrush and see if that changes it,
but luckily he seems to be doing quite well regardless
of some of his issues.
These kinds of problems can end
up crushing the turtle's organs
to where they could be in pain or debili, de--
- [Female] Debilitated?
- Yeah, is that a word, debilitated?
So although turtles with much more severe
metabolic bone disease which is certainly a possible,
it does effect him more, but in his case,
he doesn't even seem to notice,
and he doesn't know anything different,
so that's satisfying to see, even if that is the problem.
So this isn't a turtle we can like sell for money
or whatever, which we expected,
and we've taken plenty of animals for free
that just need a new home, so that was exciting to do.
But definitely one of the dopiest looking
just, silliest, funny animals that you, I don't know,
you kind of just have to chuckle
at every time you see they exist.
You mix that adorable box turtle attitude
and personality with just how he looks.
I'm bullying his looks, I'm sorry.
It's still funny, though.
(mumbles)
Good.
(engaging music)