Diane Kemler, age 13, of Eugene, Ore., for her question:
Why does a turtle’s shell become soft?
Diane's little pet is suffering from a common turtle sickness and, naturally, she wants to help him. The little fellow is not getting one of the items necessary to his health and he is suffering from a form of turtle malnutrition. The result is a softish rather than a hard shell. Maybe the little fellow also has puffy eyes and swollen eyelids.
Land turtles and water turtles make charming pets and when you know what to do for them, they give you no trouble at all. First whether your darling is a land or a water turtle. Both kinds need a home with land and water, but the water turtle needs more water than land.
The water turtle is most comfortable in an aquarium where he can swim freely around and around and up and down. But and this is most important he also needs a dry island where he can sunbathe. Sunshine is very important to his health and without it he may lack the vitamins necessary to build a hard, sturdy shell.
Other shell building chemicals may be missing from the water in his swimming pool. You can put this right by dropping a pea sized lump of plaster of Paris into the water. In addition to proper living conditions, he must also have a balanced turtle diet, land and water turtles need the same foods,
The land turtle needs a home with more land than water. He is most comfortable in a dry, sandy terrarium but he must have a small swimming pool. Remember, the little fellow cannot climb walls or fences, so he must have a sunken pool, with the edge level with the ground. Like the water turtle, he too needs sunshine to keep his good health.
A pet land or water turtle needs a mixed diet of meat and vegetables. Feed him raw hamburger, earthworms and insects. Add lettuce and other raw green vegetables to his diet. For dessert, he enjoys a berry or piece of fruit. When the days are cloudy, you can add sunshine vitamins to his diet by mixing a little cod liver or liver oil with his ground meat.
The little charmer needs but one good meal a week but it must be a balanced meal, The next day he will use his toilet, so this will be house cleaning day. In his tiny home, it is very important to keep everything spic and span and he needs this care just once a week.
Andy cannot talk about turtles without a word of warning. Many stores still sell baby turtles with paint on their little backs, even when they know better. If your turtle has been painted, remove the stuff very, very gently with daps of turpentine or nail polish. The nasty paint prevents the shell from developing and the little fellow may grow up to be deformed.