Build an Outdoor Habitat for Three-Toed Box Turtles Who Love to Swim by Becca Anderson

First, a note from your webmaster at Ornatebirdgarden.com: Hello, turtle fans.  In my articles on setting up turtle habitats, I've always taken a "better-safe-than-sorry" approach to giving turtles access to a fish pond.  Then I received two wonderfully detailed emails from Becca Anderson, a turtle enthusiast in East Texas whose three-toed box turtles love to swim! (Check out the website of Becca Anderson, author of The Gathering Place.) Becca has constructed a true swimmer's paradise for her three-toed box turtles, Scarlett and Rhett.  She includes plenty of non-skid footing for them to clamber out of the water.  In addition, she feeds them on an island which takes care of the ever-present ant problem. This is turtle-keeping at its best:  channeling one's creativity into constructing more and more ingenious features to their habitat and then watching them explore. The article that follows reproduces her two emails with her permission for your reading pleasure. – K. at OrnateBirdGarden.com

Food placed on turtle island deters ants! Photo by Becca Anderson.

Hi!  I enjoyed browsing your site this evening. I have two three-toed box turtles in an enclosure I constructed that is about 9 feet by 18 feet for the two of them (they are only about 4 years old, so not fully grown.) I was glad to see I've done almost everything right, according to your tips.
 
Walls are smooth, buried 6 inches in the ground, 18 inches extends above the ground.
 
Lots of plants to hide in, and a mound to dig in. I'm constructing other hiding places.
 
I mostly leave them alone so they can enjoy themselves without me hovering.
 
Changing water daily, feeding every other day. Just last summer they started to like fruits and veggies, not just worms and grubs. Bananas... yum!!!
 
One thing I found interesting in your notes was to keep the water shallow so they won't drown. My two actually LOVE to swim!!!  I even put in a pool for them last year, complete with goldfish (who swim after them and tickle their toes) and water plants (love to hide in those!) and an island in the middle of the pool where they can haul out, sun themselves, etc. I also fed them out on the island, since otherwise ants will mob the food before you can say "three toes!" Ants don't swim, so the food was safe on the island.
 
The pool was about 12-14 inches deep. I dug a hole in the enclosure, put a kiddy pool in with a flexible bottom (so it would go over the island I built) and gave them lots of non-skid things to climb out with. I found them paddling happily around in the pool all the time. They don't drown. They bob around like corks. Sometimes, they take it in their little turtle heads to dive down to the bottom to explore, but then they bob back up. Really cute.
 
Of course, to keep it interesting I had a fountain rigged up in the pool, and they love to float around so they go under the fountain and get sprayed. I also have an overhead sprinkler system set up so that I can make it "rain" every day. They love that! Come out from wherever they're sleeping to stomp around in the rain.
 
It's officially spring here in East Texas, and I'll be setting up their pond in the next few days again. I've kept goldfish for them all winter in our sunroom, and I know they're anxious to get back outside, too. The only difficulty is junk that falls in the pool (leaves, etc.) that sinks to the bottom and forms an obnoxious mess. So, this year I'm going to add a bit of gauzy material over the pool (about 3 feet high) to catch the stuff -- or at least much of it. The material will still let the sunlight through, though, so the plants will prosper.
 

Full Turtle Enclosure. Photo by Becca Anderson

Here's a photo from last year's set up. Just thought I'd share.
 
The walls are MUCH more substantial now (about 3 inches thick, actually) and the tent thing is gone (yes, I know, it was a hazard that could have helped them climb out.) The upright PVC pipes support the overhead sprinklers. There's a "spitting turtle" on the right side of the pool, and one of the turtles is IN the pool on the left side, just in front of the log. This was before the kiddie pool, when I was just using black plastic for a pond liner. Was leaky, so I got the pool.
 
Here they are hauling out of the water onto the island to chow down on veggies and fruits. Again, this was pre-kiddie pool … I understand from another person who knows a lot about boxies that sometimes they do love to swim. As for me, I just love to create new, fun ways for them to enjoy their enclosure.
 
… I started out giving my three-toeds a big plant dish for their watering hole. I found them in it so much that I got the idea they might like a little more, so I got a small pool for them (heavy black plastic, the kind you get in the garden center.) It was about 3 feet across. I was afraid they'd drown, so after I buried it in the ground so the edge was right at dirt level, I put in a series of big bricks that they could walk out on and get their bellies in the water, and filled it up. The very first time Scarlett walked out on those bricks, she took a header off the end of them and started swimming around very happily. Rhett did the same thing. That's when I knew I had swimmers on my hands, and spent the whole summer finding ways to give them bigger and bigger ponds with fountains and other fun things.
 
Yes, I admit that half the fun of building stuff for them is that I enjoy it -- it gets me outside, it's a fun hobby, and it uses the engineering side of my brain. (If I'd ever heard of civil engineering when I was younger, I wouldn't be a writer today. I think it's a blast to find a turtle problem or a turtle want and figure out how to solve it or supply it. :-) Scarlett and Rhett seem to enjoy the changes in their habitat, and they forever amaze me with how attentive they are and how much they notice new things. I build something for them, walk away for 10 minutes, and they are right there checking it out.
 
I'll send you photos of the 2008 set-up of their habitat when I've got the pool in and the sprinklers redone. (Had it set up before in such a way that one sprinkler put water into the pool. That doesn't work out so well, as it limits how long I can run them without overflowing the banks.) I love this time of year when I do the initial design of the habitat because I know they're just going to love the improvements.

Turtle enthusiasts, if you have a habitat design you’d like to share, feel free to drop me an email at