What a wonderful turtle and at such a fantastic price! I can see that the little guy is sure enjoying his "ride". ;o) Luvs

You have done an awesome paint job on him! Love the psychedelic look. He will look great in the garden. All the other turtles will be so envious!

I've had eastern painted turtles in my pond for years. They never bothered my goldfish or frogs. They will take a bite out of a lily once in a while, but they certainly don't destroy my pond plants. I've seen koi do much more damage. Koi require a special pond while painted turtles can exist in a water garden. Turtles like to travel and will leave your pond if you don't secure them. I use plastic fencing supported by rocks. They need basking areas, so you should have some rocks or land for them. If you feed them turtle pellets, they won't feed off of plants as much. My turtles also love watermelon. Painted turtles are native to my area, but they would not survive a cold winter in my pond. They dig into the mud at the bottom of natural lakes and ponds in November and hibernate until April. They can't do that in a pond with a rubber liner. I keep two turtles in a large indoor aquarium during the winter. If you can't do the same, I would forget about turtles.

Eastern painted I believe. So I squished one of the caterpillars and the nastiest green gross came out so I skipped feeding them to Herbert. Just didn't look like such a good idea you know? Herbert is still quite young. His shell is about 3" long now, but I found him when he was about the size of a quarter. He was on a city sidewalk about to be eaten by a dog. I couldn't get him to water immediately and I didn't know what to do with him so I took him home. He lives in a 55 gallon tank with tropical fish, live plants, river stones and drift wood pieces, one of which is his basking spot. I give him turtle pellets, dried flies, fruits, green leafy vegetables, wax worms, fruit flies and red wigglers. And of course, when he's fast enough he gets the rare fish. Oh, and ghost shrimp. I leave a pile of the pellets on his food landing strip and he eats them throughout the day. How do you know if you are overfeeding a turtle? He's super active, doesn't gobble all the pellets in one sitting and looks great so I figured he was okay. I have never had a turtle before this and only brought him home because I knew he would die and heaven forbid nature take it's course when I see a struggling baby animal. :-/ I know this isn't pond plant talk and I'm sorry if it bothers people, but I'll honestly take all the help I can get!