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RoboDuck said:
I have caught a lot of ornate box turtles over the years. When people assign 'ranges" for them, they don't always tell the turtles where the lines are. Anyhow, the "star burst" pattern is very different than the eastern's pattern. Check the link I added. Not that it matters, you seem to be doing well with them. And I don't think they're quite as sensitive as they seem to think. I never had one die on me and they ate just fine.
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You may be right, like I said they could be making their way eastward. But I just found the actual way to tell if it's ornate or eastern. So later on today when she's out and about, I'll pick her up and check... her plastron. Apparently Eastern Box Turtles have a dull, maybe even splotchy plastron. But Ornate Box Turtles have the same striking yellow lines on each scute of the plastron. So her belly will tell me which one she is. At least I know she's definitely female, unless somehow the males gained the ability to lay eggs, lol! I'll post pics of her belly later with the answer.
 
Flowerbh said:
Oh great. I had just put the chickens up, (Early, thank goodness) when I hear all sorts of chicken hollering going on. I ran outside to see what was going on and there is a gray cat trying to get into the run. We had noticed him this week across the lake watching the geese families. Don't know who he belongs to. Probably a feral cat. Now what do I do? No worries about them in the coop/run, but we let them outside during the day. Does anyone know if a cat is that much of a danger to a full grown chicken or a duck? No roosters here for protection.
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Feral cats are horrible for the environment. They kill more migratory birds than any disease or weather related event.

My neighbor yelled at me yesterday cause he had a snake in the yard. It was headed for my coop so it met its maker, the grill, and then the coop (the girls loved it). I know they kill mice and rats, but a lady in the neighborhood keeps 6 or more outside cats. The cats wont come in my back yard because of my dogs. They can tend to the mice and rats and the ones they miss can meet Luke the destroyer of dreams.


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ChickDancer said:


Here's a pic of the group collected last year. The current eggs I have come from the female in the lower right of the photo. Daddy is the one in the lower left.
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I found a yellow belly slider in the neighbors yard Saturday. Put it in my back yard in hopes it lays eggs and eats some bugs. I had a huge tank with 3 babies we found. They grew pretty fast and we let them go.
 
ChickDancer said:
And bather of Chicken Poop!
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He outdid himself this weekend. I raked out the chicken run and threw the stuff the girls wouldn't eat over the fence, or so I thought. The wife couldn't find the turd and he wouldn't come when called. Found him in the corner of the yard chowing down on the chicken's leftovers that didn't make it over the fence. I just new we were going to be up with him last night, but amazingly he didn't get us up. I wont be surprised to find a present when we get home.
 
pr0wlunwoof said:
He outdid himself this weekend. I raked out the chicken run and threw the stuff the girls wouldn't eat over the fence, or so I thought. The wife couldn't find the turd and he wouldn't come when called. Found him in the corner of the yard chowing down on the chicken's leftovers that didn't make it over the fence. I just new we were going to be up with him last night, but amazingly he didn't get us up. I wont be surprised to find a present when we get home.
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BLECH!
 
RESULTS ARE IN, @RoboDuck !

She is an....





EASTERN BOX TURTLE!





But there's a twist here. I have six adult turtles now, and two younger ones. I checked all of the plastrons on the adults and here is what I got:


Another female



A male - and Daddy of the eggs I collected



Another male, and quite a shy one. He hasn't bred with any females yet.


The phone died before I got pics of the other two females, but I did at least look at them. They have the same blotchy pattern as the two pictured here.

So as odd as it may be, both of my males are apparently Ornates, and all four of my females are Easterns!
 
Mysterious disease update:

This chick is almost 2 full months old - just over 8 weeks. Can you believe it?

400


Neither can I. Hatched by McMurray on April 4th, he has been inside most of the time getting extra care. He is one of only two chicks surviving from McMurray this year.

First, I had a bad outbreak of mites. I brought him in and just covered him with tons of DE every day for about 3 days. He seemed to be fine - ate, drank, etc. Then I had what I thought was a cocci outbreak that I treated everyone for - whether their pen had signs of it or not. He seemed to be fine, but never replaced feathers from what I thought was the mite problem.

All this time, other chicks were dying. Everytime I tried a different treatment with them, I treated him too, just in case. I treated them with Wazine in case it might be intestinal parasites. They still died. I tried ivermectin to help with mites and more internal parasites. I treated with Tylan and Penicillin (at different times)... They still died. I even began "treating" them all with yogurt. Maybe that was my problem - none of them had ANY bacteria - even the good kind. It didn't help either. Through all of this he survived, but he just wasn't growing and developing.

Yesterday morning, I noticed he had an empty crop, despite a bowl full of food. He also wasn't interested in drinking, despite fresh clean water. I dipped his head in, and he swallowed it, but that was it. He was weak, and I knew he was following the path of the others.

But being slightly larger than the others when they died, I knew I could fit the tube into his crop to force feed him. So I did - anything to keep him alive until the GA Poultry Lab could give me some answers!

Last night, I did it again, but THIS TIME, I dumped about a full teaspoon of oxytetracycline into the mix. It was a combination of baby food, yogurt (pointless with the meds, I know), chick crumbles, cracker crumbs, and water, plus the meds. A full tablespoon was MUCH more than any recommended treatment, and I thought that alone might kill him, but I'm finally at wit's end.

I also gave him another .05mL of ivermectin and about .1mL of injected oxytetracycline. An overdose for sure.

This morning, I expected to wake up and find his lifeless body in the cage. But instead, I found him, drinking water from the bowl that I had ALSO treated with oxytetracycline in hopes of helping his cage mates who had been brought in for similar reasons! He was drinking on his own! I dumped new chick crumbles into their bowl and he began to eat those too!

Whatever the hell is affecting these babies won't respond to anything else, but apparently oxytetracycline IS working! I still don't know what it is. But I'm going to send this information to the GA Poultry Lab so they can narrow their own search. Regardless of what it is though, I know this treatment is working, and I'm about to increase my supply and start treating EVERYBODY!

STILL not getting any new chickens until I find out if it can be carried for life. But at least I know I can save what I have!

And in other great news, the two EE's being kept with the turkey poults are showing NO signs of illness. That means they are very likely to be isolated enough to be free of the disease! And because of this, all future hatches of what is in the incubator now, will be kept very isolated as well! That includes about 9 silkie eggs that I bought before losing skeeter, in hopes of re-establishing my silkie flock!
 
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