General Care Discussion :: Help! Missing turtle.

[Bluekachu]

I recently put my Southern Painted and my one RES into a new tank. Because the tank didn't have a mesh lid I put egg crate over half the tank so that they could still get their proper lighting. Today I discovered the egg crate had partially fallen into the tank right onto the basking area and my RES is missing. Does anyone have any advice to help find him? I also have seven cats so I'm really really worried that one of them will find him before I do and think he's a toy.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. He's probably been out at most two hours.

[unclejoe]

Is the turtle indoors or outdoors?

[Bluekachu]

Indoor.

We've checked all around the living room and locked up as many of the cats as we can, but it's like he just disappeared. Needless to say I'm freaking out more then a tiny bit.

[unclejoe]

Wow indoors. There is no chance he could have got outside right? How big is the turtle? I would check of course all the obvious places, but since I haven't any experience losing a turtle yet, I can only advise you what we do when we lose a ferret. Check places you would never think to find a turtle. Not knowing how big the turtle is, I am gonna recommend some places that I would think a turtle of a good size would climb into since apparently they are good climbers.. Did you check under your furniture to see if there are any holes that maybe the turtle climbed into? are there any cabinets that the turtle may have crawled into and went to sleep? Maybe you inadvertently shut the door looking for the turtle and he is stuck inside. I would imagine a turtle would wanna find a dark place to hide in. Check any areas of the room that it could fit. Possible even down a heating vent. I just don't know what turtle behaviour is when loose in the house, but can't hurt to look right?? I even check places like the fridge and dishwasher when one of our ferrets is missing. You never know if it climbed in any of these places. Depending how big your turtle is.. If you have checked all the obvious places check ones you would think a turtle would never be.. That is what I would do. I don't know how common it is for a cat to hurt a turtle but I would imagine if one of your cats got a hold of it.. You would find some sort of evidence of that..

[Bluekachu]

Mango is roughly five inches in shell, so he's not the smallest of turtles. I've checked under all the furniture multiple times and pulled out what I could to be even more thorough (I even keep checking the tank to see if I just missed him *unlikely with a turtle of his size*) So far there has thankfully been no evidence of a cat getting hold of him and I feel like I would have heard him falling down the stairs (which I also checked to make sure he wasn't down there). I keep trying to be quiet so I can listen for scratching sounds but with the cats unhappily locked up it's very hard.

[steve]

I have list of things to check -- http://www.redearslider.com/lost_turtle.html

But main takeaways is to keep things quiet and listen. Keep looking and looking. They like tight, dark places and will squeeze into places you don't think they will fit.

[unclejoe]

did you check all your base cabinets see if he crawled into any of them?? what about inside of a pillow or blanket on the floor??

[unclejoe]

since Steve says they like dark tight places, check see if there are any openings under your cabinets he could squeeze through.. he may have gotten in there..

[Bluekachu]

Checked the cabinets. Most of them are closed tight though and there are no pillows on the ground or near the ground for him to crawl into. Under all the things on the ground was the first place I checked. When one of my cats go 'missing' (aka hiding) they're always under something so that's my first go to place.

Steve, That's the first place I checked after the initial search. There's no sounds of scratching at all and I've checked all the tight dark places I could think of.

[unclejoe]

Now its time to check where you think he could never be. Look higher, maybe in drawers in a garbage can. Places you would think he couldn't be. I hope he didn't make it into the room where the cats are..

[unclejoe]

do you have closed litter boxes?? Maybe he crawled into one of those..

[Bluekachu]

The litter boxes are open and I thoroughly checked the room they're in (even sifted through the litter just to make sure he wasn't there). I'm honestly not even sure where else to look at this point, but I'm still looking.

[unclejoe]

I am just trying to picture a turtle missing in my house and where a 5" turtle may go.. Hmmm do you have an bags, knapsacks, purses on the floor did you check all of those? what about pet food bags? Maybe a hungry turtle would get into catfood bag and have a feast.

[unclejoe]

Litter bag. What about corners in Closets or even inside a shoe or boot??

[Bluekachu]

I feel like I've checked everywhere at least twice. There aren't any food containers around or open that he could get into and I checked even the places that were closed up tight. We had to let the cats out because they were causing too much trouble and are sort of watching them to see where they go in case they find him. We have a tiny tub of water out with some food sticks on it to try to tempt him, but so far the only thing it's tempted is the cats to try and drink it.

I didn't think of a litter bag. I'll check that now and let you know.