Lost a red ear. Mike?

[Jerry]

My skimmer sits on 2 concrete blocks.  I saw the guy appearing as though he was swimming to the surface.
He seemed frozen and lifeless,  I could not dislodge hin with a net.  I had to get in and pull him free.
Long dead ,I think.  It was as though he was stuck to a block? No reason i could determine.
Any idea why?

[miguynmkoi]

Sorry to have that happen, Jerry.  :'(  If your red ear slider got stuck in the hole of the block it probably was not able to get to the surface for air.  Sorry.

[turtlemike]

 Sorry to hear that Jerry.

 Red ears in the fall dig a place under a rock or roots to hibernate in. They want a roof over their heads to prevent them from floating away while they sleep. My turtles have dug out a turtle hotel under my Mayla bed with the roots as the ceiling. It has become a 3 by 5 ft. flat shallow cave about turtle deep covered by lily roots. I guess that they mass hibernate together there.

 They are powerfull diggers and they can probably wedge themselves into a hole pretty tight and they want to in order to prevent being dug up when they are too cold to fight. I can imagine a turtle getting stuck in the hole in a cinder block if it was the right size. I can imagine that they can pull themselves into a tight hole with more force than they can back out with and could get stuck in a rock hole like a cinder block. As soon as the water warms enough they have to start breathing air or they will drown. My turtles have been sunning themselves for 2 or more weeks now. Also I imagine that the shell grows a tiny bit durring the winter and a tight fit in fall might be a deadly trap by spring.
 Do any of his legs look like they were caught in a piece of twine or something ?

 Durring a warm winter turtles will come sleepily to the surface to breath for a while and then go back to bed because the water is a little too warm to keep their metabolisim down low enough. This is why they dig their nests in shallow water about knee deep. Deep enough to avoid predators and low water and ice but not so deep that they cant eaisily catch a quick breath if they need to. They actually breath water with their anus durring hibernation but that only supplies enough oxygen for a very low metabolism. This shallow water probably is warmer and has more oxygen than deeper water also.

 Then again turtles just die sometimes. I found a dead buck in one of my wildlife ponds the other day. He was walking out of the water and he died on the shore with his hind legs still in the water. He wasn't shot or anything just died.
I hope it wasn't your female because I figure the boys will take off looking for females if they don't have one.


 Picture title. Because it's there.

[Jerry]

it wasn't in a hole. It was like its anus was glued to the block. I was easly able to pull him off with my hand.
Some effort but not much.  Very strange.
 thanks for all the good info. It will be valuable to many that read it

[Indiana Karen]

Wonderful info Turtlemike!  Thanks.

Love the picture too.  I wish you would post more often.

[Julles]

Jerry, was it's anus prolapsed?  I've had turtles do that.... some organ or other prolapsed out of the anus. 

Sometimes they do that, put it out intentionally, to "drink" water from a shallow dish, then retract it.  But other times I've had them with the condition such that it seemed to be what killed them. 

I have never figured out if this had to do with it or not, but when I put concrete blocks (old ones, not new ones full of uncured chemicals) into the pond for shelter for the turtles, I had two or three die in quick succession, and all with the prolapsed organ coming out the rear end.  People insisted that concrete is safe in fish or turtle water, but I still feel it had to do with the deaths.  I removed all concrete, and have not had it happen again.

[Jerry]

YES. prolapsed. I didn't know what the lump was. Why was it stuck to the face of a block?

[Julles]

Probably just got dried on it and stuck.