How to Take Care of a Wild Turtle

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm James Dix from Reptile Rescue Services in Salt Lake City, Utah. We're discussing how to take care of a wild turtle or a wild cod turtle, land or tortoise. Depending upon the species, most wild turtles or tortoises, if you do get one out of the wild, the first thing I would tell you to do is take it to a vet and have it dewormed because most of them are full of parasites and this way you know that if there's a problem with him eating, that you're eliminating any parasites or any issues dealing with them. This isn't a very hard thing to do, you get a fecal sample, they put it under a microscope, it takes about five minutes, they'll see what they have in parasites and then they'll give you the proper medicine for it. Usually it's two times on a deworming of Flagyl. Once you pick up a wild turtle, depending upon if it's a box turtle or a tortoise, whatever species you do pick up, a couple things you have to remember is that now they're in captivity, you're going to have to actually make them still feel that they're in the wild by setting up a habitat according to the range or the locale where they're from. If it's got a lot of foliage then you need to set it up that way, if it's a desert species you need to get sand, cactus in there, stuff like that. Also, very critical that you do give them a proper diet because it could be finicky, if it's used to eat cactus and you're trying to feed it lettuce, this could be a problem. So, make sure you know what species and look up on the Internet or a website, once you determine what species it is, what they live and habitat that they need."