AM Clouds and clouds

Its been cloudy for a few days here in Birmingham and today looks no different. Yesterday, Frankie didn't come out of his house at all. I checked on him and he was laying there under his blanket and straw, head sticking out, quite relaxed. He was not, however, interested at all in coming out. This morning is not different.

Just to be sure I took a close look at his eyes, nose and mouth to see that there was no evidence of respiratory illness. There was none. I will keep an eye out. Now that he is outside every night, although in a shelter, he could be experience chills from the night.

I have a new turtle -- an ornata box turtle. He is a young thing, probably two years old and in perfect condition. He has been in quarantine for the last week. I've put him in a under-the-bed plastic container with a heat light (Frankie's indoor heat light). He has Frankie's old cave (a picture of the cave is in Russ Gurley's sulcata book) for shelter. He has a ceramic water dish. Every morning when I go in the gecko room to water at 7:00 a.m. he is out of the cave and basking under the lights. I put in calcium/vitamin dusted breeding crickets or superworms every morning. The first two days he was not interested in eating. By day three, he was running madly to catch each and every prey. Turtles are amazingly fast when running down crickets. He certainly had no problem eating everyone.

He got wormed on Saturday. Probably after another worming and a clean fecal check, and a few more weeks in isolation, I will think about putting him out with the other box turtles. I will need to look over the enclosure to see if there are small areas that he could penetrate -- he is the smallest of the turtles that I have.

Pictures coming soon!