Unbelievable!

Unbelievable!
June 3rd, 2005

slangehals.jpgAbout a month before finishing our greenhouse, we put temporary one of our side neck turtles in the pond, who was already finished. Our side neck turtles had all of a sudden  some serious fights. So we decided to separate them for a little while. Our new pool looked like a good temporary/provisional solution. In the 2 years we had them, they never got out of the water, they never used the trunks and rock in their aquarium who came at the surface to take a sunbathe under the bulb. So we were very surprised when the following day the turtle was not in the pond. We never expected she would climb out of the pool. And that if she would climb out of the pond, we would find him easily. But no, we searched and searched, but no turtle. We had already sand and several plants in the greenhouse, so we turned everything inside out. We even removed the large bananatree, could she hide away in the sand or between the roots of plants? No. We really got fed up to lose her in such a manner. We searched for weeks, maybe she would return to the pool again, as she cannot live at land with her long neck. We ceased for a couple of weeks the decoration of the greenhouse. But as we did not find her anymore, we continued finally with the greenhouse. In December 2003 the first frogs came into the greenhouse. Until a couple of days ago we never saw the turtle again. We just returned from our holiday in Peru, after having checked our animals in our livingroom, we went to our greenhouse and what did we see in our pond? Our side neck turtle, she was looking good, had grown a bit, not as much as the other who had been feeding well. We were so glad to have our lost turtle back and good in the flesh! She is quite active, much more as our other one. How did she survive this one and half year without eating, she only can eat into the water? If she had returned to the pond before, eating tadpoles or so, we should have seen her before, you find us daily in our greenhouse. We put her back into her aquarium with the male. In the beginning she did not react at all to him, nor he at her. After a couple of days it looks like they are doing fine. Now we need a bigger aquarium as they have grown. For one it was fine, but the 2 of them need more space.