Too cute! Guess I should be checking the gallery, too! Darn-may need to retire just to keep up. Anyway, the photos are marvelous and that turtle is beautiful-amazing markings! Thanks for the link. Cynthia

OMG - I have land turtles once in a while - Now, along with the rabbits and deer - lol - I've got to worry about turtles eating my flowers?! Too funny....

Great prize winning photos -

Carrie

Like I said, their normal diet is specialized - they eat certain insects, like June Bugs. Boy, do they like June Bugs! Crunch and Munch.
I have had them nibble on tomatoes and pieces of watermelon that were in the compost, and even cat food or dog food that had gotten damp and soggy, but no serious damage to the garden. They consume enough of those beetles to make them worth while having in the garden. I have seen them eat grubs, spiders and wireworms, too. I don't know what else they eat, though.

I had a Siamese cat once that just LOVED tomatoes! His name was Velcro. I kept thinking a turtle was getting my tomatoes. All the tomatoes that were chewed on were down at the bottom of the plants. Then one day I caught Velcro munching down on a nice big daddy tomato and I knew I had found the tomato predator. He just loved them! It was so cute! Now how could I be angry at that? If a fellow likes a tomato or two once in awhile, how could I say no to that? He finally outgrew his love for tomatoes. I always wished I had gotten photos of it.

~Annie

Annie, those were great shots. I don't think we have them here; just the regular box turtles.

Something keeps eating my tomatoes, huge pieces out of them and the tops out of the cabbages. I know the little brown banty is running in there, but what else? I keep thinking a box turtle on the tomatoes, but haven't found him yet. Then, of course, we have lots of rabbits this year. Who knows.

Nice clean-up job he is doing on your phlox.

glenda

.... and plus, don't you feel like your cat is your child, too? We do. We have to feed the children AND the pets - that's the family!

Okay, so one of your "children" eats out of the garden....
:o)

Carrie

That is too amazing. Turtles are rarely seen in my area now days, occasionally a snapping turtle will try to get across a highway but the small dark ones with striped necks I haven't seen in years.

Thanks for sharing the pics Annie. He must have come for dessert!

Glenda,

I would be suspicious of your "little brown banty"...my hens LOVE cabbages and eat the tops out of them. They also love tomatoes and are known to steal strawberries, too. They beat me to ALL the strawberries this year. :)

I grew ten cabbages - we will consume only two (in a year) unless I make Sauerkraut (sourkraut), so I "allowed" them to eat two or three and they left the others alone. That does not always work. Sometimes they take bites out of every one they find. Depends on the number of chickens I have. When the flock is large, only fencing them out will solve the problem. In gangs, they become total punks! Of course, I shoo them out every time I see them chomping on the cabbage - you can't let the kids know you are not in complete control of things - so those two cabbages became their forbidden fruit. I give them everything I clean out of the garden. I toss it is their run and they compost it for me. :)

Now, there are various schools of thought on whether to allow chickens to eat stuff from the garden or not. One thought is that if you give them a tomato they develop a taste for them and will be more likely to rob your garden.

Another thought, (mine) is that foods that are within their dietary range are going to be fair game regardless of whether they have ever tasted one from your garden or not. They crave what they need, just like every other species on this planet, including us. (we of course are the ONLY species that consumes things that are deadly and/or makes us sick - and obviously the superior species on this planet. Uh hum!

Anyway, I bet your little thief is your Banty chicken.
During drought, wild birds will eat tomatoes too, but with the cabbage, I would venture to guess that it is your chicken.

Tomato cages (the round wire basket-type) with extra netting or chicken wire added around the bottom will help. They work for cabbages too. (wink wink)

schoolhouse,
I had a black lab years ago, named Little Elmo (MoMo for short). One summer, he took it upon himself to collect Box Turtles. We ended up with well over fifty box turtles that Elmo brought home to me. THAT is a story in itself: "The Adventures of Little Elmo and the Box Turtles". What a cute dog! He was the same dog that some of you might recall me telling you about who as a pup had a pink puppy pacifier tied to his collar.

We fed the turtles soggy dog food and June bugs and lettuce from the garden and of course tomatoes or whatever was on the turtle menu for the day. I built them a pen in an old bottomless swimming pool frame over the builder's sand pile left from the construction of my house. In the sand, I built a sunken drinking pool (a shallow plate) so they had access to water. They would dig down in the sand or climb to the top and look around, blinking. My kids watched them for hours, laughing and laughing. One half of the pen was on solid ground and there was grass, too. It was partially in filtered shade all day. The kids and I (and "itto MoMo") watched them for about a month and then we released them back into the wild. Some stayed around but most went back to their natal habitats. We learned a lot about Box Turtles in that month. I raised my children back in the day to observe, enjoy and protect all wildlife. They still do...

OBTW - We also discovered that Box Turtles love peaches...

~Annie

"Blow up your TV, throw away your paper;
Go to the country, build you a home.
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches;
Try an find Jesus, on your own."

"(I) blew up our TV; threw away our paper;
Went to the country, built (me) a home.
Had a lot of children, fed 'em on peaches.
They all found Jesus, on their own."
- John Prine

If anyone is interested, I posted a NEW LINK in the Gallery to my CRITTER album where there are a series of old photos (2003) of a yellowhead Ornate Box Turtle's encounter with 2 of my cats, Baby Cat and Puddy Tat, and my dog, Mike.

~Annie

Here is a link that might be useful: May 21, 2003 - Yellow Headed Ornate Box Turtle and My Pets

Annie, my kitty loves tomatoes too!
Go figure!