CHAPTERS

Chapter Four: Proper Housing for Your Wood Turtles

By now, you have decided where to buy your wood turtle, and, probably have read relevant information about them. Further, you might possess new skill through communicating with your friends, family, and other breeders. After all these tasks, your job is not yet done.

You must now think of the habitat requirements and caging needs for your pet. This comes first before you think of the food, handling, and even breeding them. You must set-up the right environment like its housing need, materials to use, and other tips you need to have so your pet could have a happy lifestyle. This will prevent them from being stressed out.

These things are very essential and you need to buy these before you take home your very first wood turtle. If you fail to provide these things at first, you might have a hard time in taking care of your pet easily. There are many places you can buy these supplies. So buy them now before your time runs out. In this chapter, we will help you give the best for your pet. You will gain new knowledge from this portion so take note of these things very carefully.

Housing Requirements

Wood turtles are reptiles. This means they need different location and temperature to suffice their needs. Take note of these things as they are essential so your pet could have a happy and healthy lifestyle:

Cage

Light

Night Light

Substrate

Humidifier

Terrarium

These are some of the essential things that you need to buy. They might seem expensive at first, but it will be used for a long period of time. Buy the best brand as possible, as you will use this for your pet wood turtle for a very long time.

Cage

Wood turtles could reach up to eight inches in height and are pretty active most of the time. You need to provide a big space for it to move and walk around – which they need for them to have a good health and optimum wellbeing.

New hatchlings can be raised in aquariums, but adults need custom-built enclosures that contain a shallow water pool and substrate so it can play and be comfortable with the new environment.  You do not really need to buy aquariums, you can also work with tubs, plastic containers o the like. You need a transparent casing so you can easily see your pet turtle while inside the tank.

You can DIY your own cage or terrarium if you are handy. This could be a great household activity with you and your friends. Also, this could be a great way to express your love for your pet.

UV & UVB Light

For turtles, light is very important. They just do not use light to see, the turtle’s life depend on the light that you will give it.

A word of caution, you should not look directly at these lights, because these lights are very bright and could potentially hurt your eyes – or even worse, they could blind you if you stare at them long enough. Further, secure these lights in your turtle tank so it will not fall into the water. If these lights would fall into the water, your turtle could get electrocuted and possibly die. Make sure that you know how to properly wire your pet turtle’s lights, if not, seek assistance from your friends and family.

There are three types of lights that you need to provide for your pet: natural sunlight, Ultraviolet A (UVA), and Ultraviolet B (UVB). These three are vital to provide a healthy lifestyle for your pet.

The UVB light is important to your reptile because it produces Vitamin D3. This is important for the production and usage of calcium and other important nutrients. If they are deprived of this vitamin, this would cause them metabolic bone disease and will eventually die. Make sure you buy and replace this lamp every six months – so set aside a budget for this need.

You also need to provide a basking lamp, daylight lamp that produces heat as well as light. This is important to maintain the temperature of the crate it has.

UVA, on the other hand, is needed for regulate one’s mood, activity level, breeding and mating. As we have mentioned before, wood turtles can see much more color and light unlike humans or other pets; therefore, this light is important for them to properly experience and see the world around them. Further, this helps them identify wood turtles from the same species.

These lights are essential as your pet will not have an easy access on these things especially when you place it at home.

Night Light

Aside from buying the typical lights you also need to purchase night lights as this are important for your pets. These lights, which are either purplish-blue or red, allow the turtles to see around the night without emitting too much light. This night light also provides heat which is needed for hatchling turtles. Turtles would not mind what color is their night light – as long as it is not too light and will help them see during the night.

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