Meet Taylor Rudy the Turtle. We think they’re a box turtle. Taylor Rudy the Turtle will be living with us for the next 6-months or so until they’re big enough to survive on their own outside.
We were headed out to run an errand on Saturday afternoon when Zachary spotted something moving on our front porch. “Hey look, it’s a baby turtle!” He exclaimed. Jay picked it up to examine it and discovered that not only was it a baby turtle, it was a newly-hatched baby turtle, yolk sack and all. Box turtles generally hatch in late summer and it was cold outside, so Jay brought it inside and we changed plans to head to PetSmart to pick up materials to make a little turtle habitat.
Since we don’t know if Taylor Rudy is male or female, we decided to go with a unisex name. (In the past, when we named our pond turtles, we picked turtle-related names like Lisa, Mikey, Leonardo, Mitch, etc.) Zach and I were on #TeamTaylor while Alex campaigned hard for Rudy. Combining the names was the compromise, lol.
I’m not super thrilled with having a turtle habituating on my kitchen counter, but it’s only temporary, and I’ll admit that Little TR is pretty cute. Jay bought a tank, filter, heat lamps (one for day and one for night lol), and mealworms. He set up a little ecosystem with mulch, leaves, and stones from our yard, water, and some little green-fake shrubbery stuff. Unsurprisingly, Taylor basically sleeps borrowed into the mulch like 90% of the time. Good for the turtle, boring for the kids who really want to watch and engage with it, haha. Hopefully, Taylor Rudy will grow nicely and be ready for the outside world once they’re big enough to survive and it’s warm enough outside.
Here’s a video of when we put little TR into their new home. We originally thought it was a painted turtle like the ones that live in the pond out back but quickly realized it was a box turtle and made adjustments to its habitat, like more land and less water.
So, how was your weekend? Haha.
