Here is a
care sheet on hatchlings, he is probably a baby...
Care of the hatchlings
In the wild, hatchling mortality rate is very high and very few hatchlings live past their first winter. Tiny turtles are subjected to a lot of stress and are eaten by everything from birds, raccoons, rodents, and ants. If they don't dig down deeply enough in winter they freeze, and if the springs rains come too late, the ground may not soften and they can be buried alive. As the caretaker of these hatchlings, you also have a lot to do to insure their welfare. I’ve raised both the Eastern and ornate box turtles and their care is similar. I separate ornate hatchlings from each other as they have proven to be much more aggressive and will bite at each other's tails and legs. I always feed hatchlings separately as they may accidentally bite each other as they go for the food. I’ve heard horror stories of babies losing eyes or having their jaws broken by other feeders. This is totally avoidable.
Here are some other things I do for newly hatched box turtles.
Housing: I keep box turtle hatchlings indoors for their first year. They are placed in 10 gallon tanks with a deep substrate of moist terrarium moss and reptile bark substrate. The bedding is thoroughly rinsed clean before use. Mist the substrate daily to keep the humidity high. An overhead lamp with a 60 watt bulb (or 40 watt in the summer) is left on for 12 hours each day. A low wattage or thermostat controlled under tank heater or flex-tape type heaters can also be used on one side of the tank if temperature is hard to maintain. Thermometers are attached to the tank at several locations and the heat maintained at 82° F during the day and dropped as low as 75° at night. A shallow water dish should always be filled with fresh water. I even place the babies into the water each day to be sure they are
drinking. A hide box is provided.
A Vitalite(R) or ZooMed's Reptile 500 light bulbs are necessary only if you cannot get your hatchling outdoors at least once a week for an hour. I place the turtles into shallow plastic sweater boxes that are floored with reptile bark and moss and set them outside in filtered sunlight. DO NOT LEAVE THEM ALONE. If the sun is too intense, they will quickly overheat. On very sunny days I place a leafy branch over the box for more shade and hiding.
Clean the tank at least once a month, twice a month if you have more then one hatchling in a tank. Move the turtle to a safe place, do not let it wander in the room as they are very fast and can hide well. The bedding can be reused if it hasn't been defecated on by the hatchlings. Most turtles use the water dish as a portable potty and it should be cleaned every day, or as often as needed to keep it clean and drinkable. Remove the bedding and rinse it well. The tank itself is cleaned with a commercial pet housing cleaning product. These products kill germs on contact and leave no residual odors that may effect reptiles. Good housekeeping will go a long way toward keeping your hatchlings healthy. Set up a schedule for regular cleaning and many of the common problems will not occur because germs will not accumulate to dangerous levels.
If you decide to keep your hatchlings outside, provide them with their own outdoor enclosure and protect them from birds and ants. A raised garden bed that can be covered by a screen is ideal. It doesn't have to be large but should include areas of sun and shade and a hide box. Ants, especially fire ants, have killed many baby reptiles and every precaution needs to be taken to avoid them. Place ant bait in containers outside the turtle pens to kill ants before they become a problem. Food dishes should be removed quickly after feeding, or feed the turtles in another area.
Feeding: Hatchlings need water every day but they don't need to be fed every day. With my first babies I followed the advice of several books and feed my hatchlings daily. Their meals contained only protein like tubiflex worms, Repti-Ten Sticks (R), soaked dog kibble, chopped worms, vitamin and mineral supplements for over a year. No vegetables or fruits were given since the literature of the day claimed hatchlings were carnivorous. They grew very quickly and had large shells, but some couldn't right themselves if they tipped over. Their leg and neck muscles were too weak for their large size. They also has slight pyramiding of the scutes. The photo on the left shows what pyramiding looks like. The scutes are pointy or raised in the centers. These three years old box turtles were fed pinky mice several times a week, a diet too rich in protein.
My next hatchlings were fed only every other day and was given the adult menu of protein, vegetables and fruits that were very finely chopped. In two months they began to eat the vegetables before the meat. It may be true that hatchlings are more carnivorous then adults, but they should be given the choice to eat plant matter at every meal. Their bodies will tell them when they need vegetables, plus it's good to get them use to seeing and smelling plant foods. These babies grew at a more normal rate and their shells are not oversized compared to their bodies. I can only guess that their internal organs are also benefiting from the more natural growth rate.
Food dishes should be picked up after an hour. If the food remains in the tank for long, the turtles may walk over it and make the tank messy. The food could attract bugs or rot.
Medical care: If your baby box turtle does gets sick (for example, it stops eating, or its eyes become swollen shut, or its shell begins to deform), you need to examine your rearing technique and concentrate on giving it a lot of tender, loving care. There isn't much a veterinarian can do for a tiny turtle. Some vets will give them injections or force-feed them, but there is very little published information about hatchling health care and I know of baby turtles that have died after receiving shots. The best thing to do is try to find out what in your care routine is making your turtle sick and then correct it. Give the turtle extra warmth, nutritious foods, rest and oral or topical medicines. Ideally you can avoid most problems from the start by giving the hatchlings the best care. For example, one way to avoid intestinal worms is to not feed garden worms and slugs to hatchlings. If hatchlings become worm-infested, their tiny bodies may not be able to handle it, nor the shots that may be required to kill the worms. I feed hatchlings live foods that have been farm raised by mail order companies that specialize in live foods. Waxworms, freshly molted mealworms and superworms are good first live foods as they are soft bodied.
Hatchling box turtles are a joy to have, but they require a lot of extra care and time. Many people have raised baby box turtles, some with more success than others. The important difference in raising perfectly formed, strong and healthy box turtles verses weak, abnormally shaped and sickly ones is devotion to their care and your continuing efforts to learn from your mistakes and those of others.