Red Eared Slider babies

[Dimelius]

this one in italy...

 

[Marck]

How long has it been since the previous time the pond was cleaned? The smallest Red-eared Slider (Trachemys scripta) might have been there before the other two. Were large plants in containers ever placed in the pond? it might have come in that way.

 

[brokensword]

View attachment 147454this one in italy...

DAng, Dime; that's for ITALIAN turtles; I ain't sure this is one of 'em...!!

 

[brokensword]

How long has it been since the previous time the pond was cleaned? The smallest Red-eared Slider (Trachemys scripta) might have been there before the other two. Were large plants in containers ever placed in the pond? it might have come in that way.

oh geez, Marck, ya gots ta point me to that plant nursery where ya get hitchhiker turtles!! Now, THAT would be the place to buy from!

 

[Relic]

In an earlier life I hatched several clutches of red eared sliders and raised the babies for their first year of life before releasing them. They had an abundance of food and optimal growing conditions and usually only hit 2 1/2 to 3 inches in diameter after that first year. That third turtle is clearly not a baby or even a young adolescent; that's an adult of unknown age. If your turtles had bred and nested outside of the pond in your yard, you most likely would have found other babies. 12-18 eggs per clutch is average for a fully grown female, so unless predators got the little guys, you would have expected more than just one to reach your pond. But it's a savage world out there and stuff happens...and if that is fungus on the upper carapace, you can just isolate the turtle for a couple for days (out of the water) and rub athlete's foot fungus cream on it and that will usually cure it quickly, just clean off any residual before placing the turtle back in the pond. Good luck.

 

[TeamRoy]

Hi everyone! I have a few questions for anyone who is a turtle expert. We are fairly new to having our red eared sliders - we have them in a koi pond with koi fish. We bought our first male slider from a pet store June 2021, we adopted a female a month or so later (she was from a tank so she had never been in a pond before…) and today while having the pond cleaned - we find another turtle! I’m sure it’s their baby - but I’ve read that turtles don’t typically lay eggs and have them hatch when it’s cold. Also, this new turtle is about 5 or 6 inches long already…. Isn’t that a little big for a brand new baby turtle? Sure would appreciate anyones thoughts on this - my husband thinks it just climbed into our pond from the outside world lol. We have 9 foot high concrete walls and there’s no way in or out for them.

Wow I don’t know how to reply to everyone without going in to each message and I definitely don’t have the time to do that lol. Thank you all for your input, our yard isn’t viewable by anyone or accessible either. It is split level and we have a pit bull so I don’t feel like someone would’ve “dropped that little guy off” and we’ve checked the perimeter for holes. Can’t imagine he would’ve made his way from somewhere to our pond - this pond has been here for years and never had turtles until we put some in it. As I said we have concrete walls all around and scaling them for a turtle is impossible with how high they are. The first turtle in the pic is a female we adopted in July, the middle turtle is the male we got from the pet store the month before. We clean the pond twice a year & it was cleaned last August - no chance of turtle hiding in there. When we had it cleaned yesterday the two littlest turtles were in the sub pump area - not the pond. We have a dirt hill above the pond and in October there was a hole dug in it - so I’m thinking the female buried eggs and only one survived due to the cold. Then because it was so little - it fell down into the sub pump & the male followed it…? Anyway, doesn’t really matter - we’re happy to have them all! Now to address the fungus some are saying they have - thank you all so much for your thoughts!