Happy Thanksgiving!
Hello! It is Thanksgiving! We give thanks to the awesome turkey the human fed us! And the special treatment that I get for being the cuter one! And the fact we got a good human!
“TTTUUUURRRKKKEEEYYYYY!”
“OMNOMNOMNOM”
“Hey, human? Is Scoria hoarding it again?”
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“Don’t listen to Slate! I gave her a bite!”
“Canz I please have an extra piece?”
“I beg you, gimme another piece!”
“Pleeeeeaaaaasssssweeeeeee”
“So much for thanksgiving…”
“NOMNOMNOM”
“Slate already had some, don’t listen to her”
“Slate, the human dropped another piece, you can eat that”
The human rinsed the turkey in water first, we didn’t eat too much oil. Happy Thanksgiving people (and turtles!)
Noting the Noming
Hi sorry about the really late post as opposed to our normal schedule. It’s been getting colder, because… Well… It’s November right? Turtles aren’t very active in the cold!
Here are a few awesome pictures of us noming on food. Our idol in life is food and maaaybe plasteron rubs.
WordPress has a new formatting we’re not sure we like, it’s a bit glitchy on the “uploading of photos” but it is a but more stylish. And that, was turtles complaining about a web software. The more you think, the weirder it gets.
A Bunch of Turtle GIFs
Since our human was too lazy to take pictures of us, we decided to find some GIFs. Here are the best in our opinion.
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Why we can’t ever be police turtles
Found from buzzed.com
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For those of you who like Star Wars
Found on giphy.com
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We are the best at escaping things… Sort of
Found on buzfeed.com
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I didn’t know we were so scary… Hmm, can I scare my human?
Found on tumblr.com
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That one time turtles ever lose balance
Found on tumblr.com
Hehe, turtles will be taking over the Internet soon. Beware cats and dogs, your memes will be replaced by ours. Humans will worship us next.
Turtle Info 5: Shedding
I bet now you are a bit confused about the title. If you remember the posts when Slate and I were shedding, you know that turtles can shed their skin in little pieces that look like fur. If you saw this post, you know we can shed our shell too. The divisions of our shell are called scutes. The top half is called the carapace and the bottom is called the plasteron.
The shedding process happens whenever we grow, in terms of skin or shell.
This is my plasteron… I think
When it looks like the scutes are peeling off, we are shedding. In order to help us in this process, give us vegetables and calcium. The calcium helps our she’ll grow so that its easier to push off the scutes. Remember the gelatin in the last post? That had a LOT of calcium in it because of the powdered cuttlebone. Let us bask a lot too, when we bask, the water underneath our scutes evaporates and we are left with a bubble under out shell, when we jump into the water, the bubble wants to go up, loosening the scute while doing so. DO NOT TRY TO HELP US SHED, if you pick too hard you may open up a cut and we would not be happy.
If it looks like we are fuzzy turtles underwater but look fine on land we are shedding our skin. We shed like lizards, it comes off in torn up pieces. Make sure to run a filter or do frequent water changes because the water WILL look gross with little pieces of skin floating around. The filter was clogged for a while, that’s the power of those little pieces, they build up.
Turtle Close-Ups
Hey! We got some sneak-peak/ special-not-going-to-be-posted-photos-of-upcoming-post pictures of close-up us! Now that we have a bit more of time on our claws, we can get back to blogging regularly! Here are the pictures of us from our next posts of us exploring the house on the Cape!
Now I’M Shedding my Skin
Remember when Slate shared about her skin shedding? If you don’t it’s here. When our human opened up the filter, it was clogged with skin! She had to clean it and get a new filter cartridge. Now I am shedding too! So much that I look fuzzy.
WE GOT A PROPER LIGHT!!!!
So, after getting a filter and waiting a few weeks, our old lousy piece of junk (that was a five year old UV light) broke. You’d think that’s a bad thing right? WRONG! We got an upgrade! A ZooMed turtle lighting kit!
Teasing our Human
Like we mentioned in one of our previous posts here, our human was very mean to us because she teased us with the sweet smelling bar of ice. Our human threw a few pieces of potato into our tank. We want to make her jealous and we just got her back. 
Selfies!
We are little devils >:) We stole our human’s mobile phone for a bit and did a bit of selfie taking.
Hehe, here are the best selection in our opinions. (more…)
We Want it! It Smells Good!
Our human is very mean, she teased us with this sweet smelling bar of ice. Slate even tried to eat it from inside the tank. Well, so have I… 
Turtle Info 4, Can We See In Color?
Can we see in colors or not? Well, if we told you right now you wouldn’t need to read the rest so we’re going to let that question unanswered.
My “Massage Station”
In one of our previous posts, seen here, we mention that I like to “massage” myself under the filter. I decided to hold the position so that the human-that-takes-care-of-us could take pictures. Here they are.
“Ahhhhhhh…”
“Right there…”
“Oh, there’s a camera here”
Scoria: “Slate! Get out of there! What are you doing?”
Slate: “Scoria, sometimes you will never understand…”
“YAYYYYY! Bubbles!”
All of the strange, wispy stuff is my shedding skin (yep, I’m still shedding) and the bubbles. Well, I guess the downpour of water helps get my shedding skin off.
Maybe Scoria will one day realize the comfort of this… I’d rather not though ;). I want to keep it to myself.
The Day We Saw Her
This should’ve been the first thing we shared about, whoops
February 28, 2015, Saturday at about 6:25. We were in our old tank, the three gallon tank for two, three inch turtles. The water level was low, about a centimeter high. The UV lights were five years old, all we had for basking were smooth stones. Our water wasn’t de-chlorinated. We didn’t drink too often. It was bright, a dog came and barked at us. Even the fish got a bigger tank than us! A whole twenty gallons! Then we heard a muffled knock, we didn’t really care unless it was a crazy little human that bounced around screaming.
Our old, small tank.
The human that fed us went over to the door, opened it up, a cold, dark hole to the outside. Another two humans were waiting at the door. Our feeding human talked with them for a bit, then came over and walked towards us. I thought that she was going to feed me but, she put my pellet foods into a bag that crinkled and made weird sounds like rain falling. She gave our food-bag to the humans at the door, “whaaat?” Slate said, astonished. “No more food?” Slate said. Then, for a horrifying moment she walked over again and picked our tank up, walked over to the door. The new human held our tank firmly. They talked for a bit, that door-hole was colder than we expected, our light was unplugged. Then we left, the human walked us over to a big, silver, metal thing on wheels.
We were placed in a dark area, I could smell food close by, we were probably next to the food-bag. It was a dark, bumpy, cold, scary ride. After some terrifying minutes we stopped, the humans opened the door and took us out. We were carried to a strange building we had never seen before. Our human opened the door-hole and we felt a blast of light and warmth. No dog in sight.
We were moved over to a shelf, our new human brought us up the stairs and gave us a higher water level as well as some water conditioner in our water. This human noticed that this tank was small and increased the water level even more so that we could move around. We were a bit stressed but our human left us alone for two days to let us settle down.
That wonderful day that we got away from the dog
Our New Filter!!!!
I know this is two posts in a day but, WE GOT A FILTER!!!!! It’s the Repto filter 90 GPH. Here is a picture of the box.
Because of the filter, our tank was readjusted, all of our rocks and plants on one side, all of the swimming area on the other. A filter also meant a higher water level \(‘ ‘)/. We can really move around now! It’s easier for me because I’m smaller and I can swim in less water. Here is a picture of the filter in action.
Ignore the kale, we just had a snack
higher water level means more ROCKS, and I LOVE rocks! I’m a natural at modeling and posing.
As you can see, Scoria chose to tag along. Although her pose wasn’t as dramatic as mine >:)
If you look at the filter-in-action photo, you can see that it’s sort of like a waterfall so the filtered water falls down. Sometimes I get myself onto the rock and let the water massage by shell and skin. I really love this filter, ITS PERFECT.
Scoria seems scared of the filter, I don’t know why but when our mommy turns the filter on, she runs away from the crashing water. *sigh, she’s missing out on the shell massage. I still really think the filter is a FANTASTIC idea, it means less stress and fewer water changes!
So yeah, we really love the filter!
Giving Human a Stressful Night
Tonight, when our human let us out to walk around the house, I looked around for hiding spots. She was the kind of human that let us walk around freely but, she was watching Slate more because Slate was moving around a lot more. So, when I made sure that my Mom wasn’t watching, I snuck off in between the sofa and the wall so that I couldn’t be seen. When Slate was being put back into the tank, she started looking for me, to tell you the truth, she was looking in some strange places like the other rooms. I’m a turtle! I can’t move that far in thirty seconds! Here is a timeline of what happened:
9:30, Human watches both of us on the ground, out of our tanks.
9:37, Human watches Slate more because she is going under furniture.
9:40, Human only watches Slate, I pick a hiding spot.
9:45, I settle in under the couch.
9:50, Human puts Slate back into the tank, she looks for me.
9:54, Human looks around using sound and sight.
9:55, Human used flashlight to find me.
She even scolded me for hiding for so long! It was like”Naughty naughty Scoria, into your tank you go”.
I looked at her again and jumped into the water. But then, I gave her the please-forgive-me face.
As you can see, Slate chose to photobomb the photo. I know the water is a bit green, I will be doing a water change soon.
Digital Drawings for Underneath the Shell
We’ve noticed that our human has been a bit more busy on her device she calls an IPad, we tried to see from our tank but no such luck. When our human left the house later she left the IPad on so we crept out and went to go see. Me, being smaller, pressed the screen with more precision so I opened up the app and this is what I found!
Why did you draw someone else’s turtles? We thought you loved us more! When you come home human, we will attack you with cute eyes!
Scoria’s cute eyes
Turtle Info 2, Our Habitat
We, being semi-aquatic species require a watery swimming area and a completely dry basking area. Our species in the wild live near ponds in southern U.S. Lots of us are pets, we are a bit more domesticated and adapt more quickly. Some bad owners let us go into the wild, us being much more hardy than some native species will compete for resources. Here is a map borrowed from online.sfsu.edu that shows where red eared sliders normally live and where bad owners let us go.
Now, moving on to the turtles living in captivity, we are easily neglected as some people think of us as “throw away pets”. Most parents get these turtles for their kids for the sake of having a pet! Little do they know that if taken care of properly it will be a pet for a long time, as long as 40 years! Now, most people think they can keep us in tiny little gallon containers, great, no room to move, no filter, no clean water, and crappy lights. Watch a turtle die a slow horrible death for two months, have fun kids! THAT IS LITERALLY ANIMAL ABUSE!!!! Slate and I used to be kept like that, I don’t even know how we survived for five years. Now, for proper care. Find the length of the carapace in inches, multiply the number by ten and that’s how many gallons the tank should be. Here’s what a proper tank looks like borrowed from caringforreptiles.com
Notice the filters, basking area, UV lights and proper swimming area. Well, that’s all I have to say so I’ll wrap this up with a cute picture of me.
Turtle Species 2: Painted Turtle
The Painted turtle is an aquatic species of turtle and is very similar to the Red Eared Slider. We have a friend named Gamera, he is a painted turtle here are some pictures of him.
His tank is a bit dirty, his humans said that his tank was due for a cleaning
Unlike the red eared slider, they are native here in northern United States. Most live in rivers and ponds, though some are kept as pets. Males and females differ in size just like red eared sliders. The color has a wide range, most turtles have olive to black shells. Turtles found in deeper water seem to have darker colored shells for hiding, their skin is usually the same as their shell, dark olive or black. The marking on their skin can be greenish yellow or orangey red. Their plasteron is usually pale yellow or sometimes orange with dark markings.
There are many variants like the eastern painted turtle (Gamera), the midland, the southern, and the western. Sometimes bad humans let them go into the wild too, they don’t always let them go in the right places and just like the red eared slider, they may compete with other native species. The turtle we were just writing about as a description was the eastern painted turtle.
Now, we are wondering if our species (red eared slider) are close enough to the painted turtle species to mate. Scoria might need a husband sooner or later. Gamera is male but only about one year old, our human is considering when Gamera gets old enough to mate (3-5 years old) she would let us meet Gamera in person and see which one of us he likes better.
Turtle Info 1: Our Species
Alright, if you’re wondering it’s Slate typing here, our species, the Red Eared Slider or Trachemys scripta elegans is an aquatic turtle, but we don’t breathe underwater. Our species in the wild is scattered around southern U.S. and northern South America. However, some owners let their turtles go into the wild (our human would never do that, she loves us too much), they are an unnatural species in the northern U.S. and being much more hardy, compete with native species for resources. Anyway, we have a red blotch over where humans think our ears would be so there came our name. We are reptiles so we don’t produce our own body heat so we must rely on the sun. A bad human could forget that and make us sick.
Here is Scoria, notice the red blotch.
Our species is in the Pond Slider family, we have been noted to be able to slide into a pond quickly.
Our diet consists of many things, here are some that we enjoy: meats (boiled) chicken, beef, pork, veggies (no spinach) some are romaine lettuce, watercress, dandelion leaves, fruit (feed once a month) oranges, banana, grapes without the skin, apple. AND PELLETS!!
Some things you want to avoid feeding us are: Spinach, dairy, flavored meats, processed foods.
Some calcium high foods you may want to feed us are: Peas, eggshell, cuttlebone and calcium dusted things.
We need UV lighting for our D3, without D3 we can’t use all of that calcium that you give us.
Take good care of our species, I know not everything is here but I will update them
Scoria
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Hi! I’m Scoria, typing this time. I’m Slate’s… Roommate? I’m the bigger turtle of the duo, but I have a small cut on my shell but its healing over very nicely. I get Neosporin on it during every feeding and my diet has been arranged so that I get some more calcium to rebuild it. You can tell me apart from Slate by my shell, it’s darker which could mean that I’m older, but you never know…
I’m the most adventurous eater in general, I was the first to try the worms from our garden that our human dug up. Our new human cares so much more for us, shes gotten us a better diet, put us in a bigger but still small tank (that was the best she could do for now) and helped my shell with the cut. She loves us so much that I like to think of her as our mom, I know Slate said that in her post here, but really, shes been that nice to us.
The Turtles
Hi! This is Slate and Scoria! We are the turtles that share this WordPress account and blog! You can learn more about us individually by visiting Slate and Scoria.
Here I am!
Hi, Slate first! We are both Red Eared Sliders and are puny for our age. We were given away by our old human at five years old and we are only 4 inches long and 3 inches long due to our tiny tank. Our new human has gotten us an upgrade and now we have room to move! Eh, yeah, Scoria types better because of her bigger hands so she will be writing more posts than me. Besides the fact that I am smaller than Scoria, you can tell us apart by our shell markings, the top of our head, and our attitudes, I prefer to stay away from those huge human fingers unless they have food, Scoria, on the other hand, would follow fingers off a cliff. Maybe because they look like the chicken the fingers fed her. Haha, that might explain why she’s so fat.
Oh, hi!
Finally, my turn to type! Ok, Slate, I AM NOT FAT!!! I just have a bit of extra skin, not fat! If anyone’s fat, its YOU. Oh, come on! I would not follow fingers off a cliff! Humph! You think you’re so special just because you have the red teardrop!
Sorry, that was Slate being… Slate, I still remember when she pushed me off the basking dock and nearly drowned me. Our new human cares soo much more for us than our old human (ONLY PELLETS and ONLY TWICE A WEEK!!!) at least now we get fed about every other day although I wish we got some everyday.
Slate
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Hi, I’m Slate, I’m the smaller turtle of us, I’m a Red Eared Slider like Scoria. I have a red “teardrop” on my head, that’s one way to tell me and my sister, Scoria apart, another way is by our shell, I have bright stripes on my shell as you can see in the picture below. (more…)
slatescoria
Slate and Scoria 
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