I also agree with everyone else, that baffle needs to get back on there asap. The baffle will not scare the adults off. I don't think it would even affect them if it was put on before egg laying commenced. We luckily don't have snakesaround here but we do have raccoons and there are raccoons everywhere whether people see them or not or think they have them or not. We had some boxes that didn't have baffles on them, normally TRES nested in them and for some reason we never had problems when TRES nested. This year the Blues took one of those boxes and I was lax on getting the baffle intstalled, it should have been on there to begin with but never was. Well of course a raccoon climbed the 1/2 conduit and got two of the five babies one night. Thankfully the conduit must have been hard to hold onto and that was all it got. I could see the hair and grass stuck to the pole going up and the nest was a mess and two babies were gone, that is why I knew it was a coon. I got a baffle on that pole immediately the day I found that and had to take the babies out and fix the nest. Two days later there was a raccoon paw print on the baffle, but it didn not try to climb up with the baffle on. The remaining three would have been lost too had I not had a baffle on. Just cause it never happened before doesn't mean it won't happen. Tell your neighbor he doesn't want to learn the hard way that it will and can happen any time!! Donna

Good news you got the second egg! Ok and I could bite my tongue that I said I wanted rain. We did get some last night, not much but I would rather have done without that storm that came through WI. OMG it was awful, the winds were so strong, our yard was littered with branches this morning, lost half of a large silver maple tree, smashed a ceramic birdbath I had, knocked over and off the deck several potted plants. I went out to save one plant and I thought I was going to get either blown off the deck or that something was going to hit me. I heard something about 70mph winds. I couldn't sleep worrying about the bluebirds either and my worry was unfortunately well founded. Momma Blue was injured last night and is now only using one leg. I have no clue what is wrong with it or if it will heal or not, she is holding it up against her. She had started a new nest yeserday but hasn't resumed that at all today but she is feeding the fledgings. Not sure if they are all out there yet or not, they fledged on Wednesday. I thought I saw three of them today but I am not sure and they have now taken them to the neighbors yard. I do have two eggs now in the other Blues nestbox so I think they made it through the storm ok. Donna

You can use Superglue to glue a small plastic tag to the shell. It's not toxic; in fact vets use a variant of this glue to "suture" wounds and repain injuries, on reptiles as well as mammals. I've used it on snakes with skin tears and it works quite well. It will hold up until the turtle moults its shell scutes, which they DO, by the way. The only permanent marker would be a microchip, or PIT tag, which has to be injected, and cannot be seen from the outside. Sharon McKenzie

How large is your berry bed? The best option would be to place a short (12 inches) wooden or brick barrier around the bed to keep the turtles out but you could easily step over. The turtles are not able to climb a slick upright surface. You will not find a repellent. The turtles could push aside a net fence, but would not have eaten through a fence. What you are describing is unusual behavior for box turtles. The box turtle is facing a losing battle of habitat loss and is protected in most of its range. Slow sexual maturity, small egg clutches, high hatchling mortality, and fast cars make survival a questionable end result. Consider sharing your berries. Are you sure that box turtles are your main culprit? They will eat berries, to be sure, but a whole patch? Box turtles are not herding animals. They are solitary except to breed. My guess is that birds or other creatures may also be taking a share, especially if you are missing raspberries: the box turtles could only eat those within a few inches of the ground.