Get To Know Red Ear Slider Turtles

The Red-Eared Slider ( Latin name: Trachemys scripta elegans), is a semi-aquatic turtle and is a native of the southern U.S. but they are presently found in many countries, from Canada to Japan as a result of commercial pet trade.

Red-ear turtles are powerful underwater swimmers, and like to spend the warmer hours of the day sunbathing on logs or rocks basking in the hot sun.

Red-eared Sliders can become surprisingly large, considering that they start out not much bigger than a quarter. The female can expand to as much as 12 inches in length and the male-slider  somewhat shorter at 10 inches.

Generally the red-ear is solely aquatic, but the females leave the water to lay eggs. Like many reptiles, they are deceivingly fast at the slightest sign of danger.

Sliders are omnivores, which means they enjoy eating both animal protein and vegetable/plant material. Baby turtles require up to 40% of their foods to be from protein sources where adult turtles will graze more heavily on vegetation. When in the wild, they start by eating tiny fish as well as amphibian larva, water snails and plants that crowd the typical swampy areas where they are so often found.

Young red-ears in captivity will need vitamins to strengthen their immune system; especially vitamin A and calcium to aid prevention of disease.

IN addition they love eating meal worms, earthworms, and sweet water shrimp, but the little turtle's mouth is not large enough to eat them whole so you have to chop them up into tiny pieces.

Commercial turtle pellets are somewhat nutritious and convenient, and do contain a good mix of vitamins and minerals, but, since "variety is the spice of life" for not only humans but animals as well, giving a wide variety of eating-choices is better than solely providing a commercial turtle pellet. Indeed, the only good thing about the pellets is that they have extra nutrients the turtle may be lacking in.

Live prey are a good choice for your red-ear as they are enriching,and provide the turtles an important chance to exercise by hunting just as they would in the wild.

Protein:

• earthworms,
  
• crickets,
  
• waxworms,
  
• silkworms,
  
• aquatic snails
• blood worms,
  
• daphnia,
  
• shrimp, krill,
  
• mealworms

Leafy greens:

• collard,
  
• mustard and dandelion greens,
  
• kale
  
• bok choy
  

Iceberg lettuce should NOT be feed to turtles as it contains little nutrition, but dark green leaf lettuces (e.g romaine) can be feed in small amounts.

Aquatic plants:

If your slider is in an aquarium or pond you can contribute aquatic plants for turtle snacking. Underwater plants like anacharis are frequently eaten, as are water hyacinth, duckweed, azolla (fairy moss), as well as frog-bit.

Other vegetables:

• carrots (those green tops are fine as well)
  
• squash and
  
• green beans.

Supplements :

Reptiles multi-vitamins with calcium and vitamin D3 can be mixed with their food a few times a week. In addition, an excellent way to provide extra calcium is by putting a cuttlebone in the turtle's water. (You can find them in the bird area of pet shops).

It is illegal in the United States. for pet shops to sell any turtle that is less than four inches in length. Those that are sold legally must be minimally four inches long from their neck part of the carapace (top shell) to the rear end of the carapace.

At that point, if the red-ear turtle is a boy, it will be somewhere between 2-4 years old and sexually mature. Wild females attain maturity later, around 5-7 years, at which point they will be over 5 inches in length While in captivity, female turtles may reach adulthood at about three and one half years.

Note: You can tell male from females: males are smaller than females in body length but have longer tails.

So you have a new pet red-ear from the store. Now need a healthy, clean and spacious place for your friend to live.

For mature red ear sliders it is best that you provide one gallon of water per inch of body length of your red-ear. Let's say you have one twelve inch long turtle. It will require a 120 gallon tank.

Now, since these critters do not clean up after themselves, you will inevitably need a high powered filter--that is one that is rated for a tank 3 times the tank size you have.

It is essential that you provide a place for your red-ear slider to completely emerge from the water to dry off. Why? Otherwise he will get 'shell-rot'. It is not good enough for your turtle to just dry off his head; his whole body right down to his back legs must be provided a place to get totally dried-out.

So build or buy a basking platform, which allows the turtle to completely come out of the water and dry off. Right above the basking platform there needs to be a UVB/UVA bulb. UVA exposure is crucial for your red-ear to be healthy in all ways from behaviour to feeding. You should ideally have another regular household lightbulb as well for heat, as the sunbathing area should be quite warm--around 90 degrees.

In selecting a platform, do keep in mind the turtle's belly, while it looks as tough as plastic, is not. The platform should be a smooth material, and if it is wood should be well-sanded and splinter-free. It must be placed in the tank such that the red-ear can lift himself out of the water, so the basking-ledge should slant slightly,for him to easily pull himself up on to it.