Hello, we have 2 red ear sliders. The male will be 9 and the female will be 7 in August. The male one is usually more shy and timid while the female is always active and when she sees me or my sister, she would come and climb up the tank to ask for more food. She could eat non-stop but we decide to feed her once a day and on occasion give a few pellets here and there. The diet we give our turtles are usually dried plankton (vitamin A), dried blood worms, and turtle pellets. On occasions we may have live bugs like spiders, earwigs, or silverfish that we catch in the house.
One day, I noticed that the male mated with the female so we separated them into 2 tanks. However both tanks are filled with water about 2 inches high and we alternate the basking lamp every hour between tanks. It's been about 2 months since that occurred so I'm not sure if the female got pregnant. Hopefully not....
However, 2 days ago the female turtle stopped eating suddenly. She seemed perfect the day before. We cleaned her tank that night. While cleaning I see that she would put her head down and seemed lethargic. But when touching her or picking her up, she'd start moving again. We put the male next to her and he'd put his head under the left and right sides of her shell. Then he'd walk up to her and look at her face to face and then put his head back under her shell.
Yesterday, my sister noticed that the female wasn't moving under water for an hour. Her eyes were open and she seemed frozen. Fearing for the worst, we put her on the floating rock. We positioned the lamp on the back of her shell and tail. I sprayed some water on her shell to keep her moist. Her arms & feet seemed to be hanging and she didn't seem like she's breathing.... While not giving up hope, we kept the lamp on her and kept her shell moist. Later her eyes shut and neck went back into the shell a bit but was still in the same frozen position. This morning we noticed her front arms folded back up towards the shell.
She didn't have any illness before and I believe 7 years is only the beginning in a turtle's lifespan. Any idea if she's still alive in a hibernation state? It is summer here in Boston, MA and it's been pretty hot the past couple of days. We don't have A/C in the room where the turtles are in. I hope she is not dead and might just be hibernating in the summer for some strange reason.... Anything we can do to wake her up? Thanks for your help.
