Raising Connections
Critters, Companions, Commerce, & Agriculture: Casual yet intelligent conversation connecting topics for Rural, Suburban and Urban listeners.
Raising Connections
Dean the Turtle Whisperer: Shelled and Filtered 05-18-2026
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This podcast dives into the lives of turtles, tortoises, and other reptiles that outlast generations, thriving under careful protection and purpose‑driven stewardship.
Rachann talks with Dean, the keeper and guardian at Dean’s Turtle Farm, who manages many species, including over 100 turtles, while advancing education, conservation, and hands‑on protection.
This episode brings listeners closer to the reptiles that shape ecosystems and the people dedicated to preserving them.
Main Mid Atlantic Turtle & Tortoise Society
www.raisingconnections.com
Today's podcast is brought to you by Mariah Bell Manor Channel, offering dog boarding, bathing, and daycare in an eco-friendly environment. Our pet care with a personal touch is not just a motto, it's really what we do. Our touch extends to the food without preservatives, quality and natural fan food, inclusive boarding, and a green living environment. Sounds like I might want to check in. Visit us anytime on our Facebook page, Mariah Bell Manor Kennel or Mariah Bellmanor Kennel.com. Enjoy your program. Welcome to Raising Connections, connecting your community to others through critters, companions, commerce, and agriculture. I'm Ray Shannon Mayer. Let's raise some connections. Here we go. Today, as always, we have a fun and interesting guest, Dean from Dean's Turtle Farm. Dean, can you introduce yourself?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my name is Dean, and I like turtles.
SPEAKER_03We are at your farm today, looking at your sanctuary, at your farm, at your passion project. How do you define Dean's Turtle Farm?
SPEAKER_00I define it as a guy who got a lot of turtles and had to keep building things. I started getting surrender requests. And I was like, okay, I'm not an official nonprofit. I'm not an official place or anything. But once that started happening, and it started happening very quickly, I went from 30 turtles, which to me was casual. I had about 30 turtles before I started the Facebook, to over a hundred in a year. So very quickly, I was like, all right, I need to get organized. I made sure I got myself proper Maryland permits. I'm registered as a business with Maryland and I got everything in line so I could do things as kosherly as possible. And so in those early days, it was pretty much an intake facility. I was saying yes to everything. I would just keep taking these people's turtles. But that just snowballed so quickly that I had to pull it back and really think about what I want to do here. And what I want to do here is focus on conservation and education. You know, I can only do so much as I do this part-time and on the side, but I tried to do that by having engaging and educational posts online, information online, and the tours. People come and do tours, which that's another thing that just sort of happened. I kept getting requests for people to come visit my turtles. I'd be like, Well, I get off of work at this time, you can swing by. It was very unofficial. Well, then one time somebody made a reel, put it on Instagram, and I was at work one day and I checked my phone at lunch, and 40 moms were in my inbox wanting to bring their kids. And I was like, oh my gosh, I need something more official with the tours. And now the tours I've been doing for over two years, I have a routine with it. My son is involved. My son is 14, he's very into the turtle farm too, and he's very knowledgeable now. And that's how the tour started. And the tours now has become the number one way that I educate, but also that I pay for their care. So it doesn't become a financial burden to the family. So that's why I do the tours and the stuff. It's just like if I can at least cover the expenses for them, the passion and the time, that's on me. That's fine. So I got this one and the blue-eyed Lucy. That's a ball python. A blue-eyed Lucy is a type of colored morph. It's all white, as you can see. It's the white snake underneath that log there. Yeah, I can get it out if you want.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay. No problem. I got them from the same person who's also a reptile enthusiast. Well, every once in a while, she's like, I really like this turtle. Like, and I've got this, and she will kind of do like, you know. Like I gave her an axolotl and a musk turtle and a couple of things. And she's a teacher, actually. So, like that one was a last pet for a while.
SPEAKER_03That can't be an exolotal back there.
SPEAKER_00No, no, I don't have any axolotls down here.
SPEAKER_03I went to Indiana University and they had one of the first axolotl communities.
SPEAKER_00Oh, really? I used to have a bunch. Another reptile rescue gave them all to me when they were closing up shop. So I had like 15 exolotals, and I spent about a year adopting them out to suitable families.
SPEAKER_03What is an axolotl?
SPEAKER_00It is basically a salamander from Mexico, but they never go through metamorphosis. All amphibians have a metamorphosis process where they go from gills to lungs. Axolotls never exchange their gills for lungs, so they stay aquatic their whole lives. And they're critically endangered in the wild. They only live in one place in Mexico now, but in captivity they breed like crazy. So there's tons more in captivity than in the wild. They will probably go extinct in the wild while they're flourishing in the pet trade. I'm not sure who's in charge of like replenishing down there, but I think it has a lot to do with the habitat loss and stuff as well. They require very specific parameters, and if they're not met in the wild, they just don't die. It's talking about like pH and water cleanliness and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03And they have a very friendly face. They do.
SPEAKER_00They look kind of derpy.
SPEAKER_03They do. What we're looking at here is a color morph of a bearded dragon. This is also a very common pet.
SPEAKER_00It is. For me, I mostly deal with turtles, and my bane of existence these days is red-eared sliders. I'll get 30 people a week wanting to give me a red-eared slider because everyone gets them, everyone thinks they're cute, and then they live 60, 70 years. But usually after about I think the number is about 20.
SPEAKER_0160, 70 years.
SPEAKER_00They can, yeah. Okay. But usually most people's limit seems to be about 20, because I get a lot of requests. I've had it 20 years. My kids grew up and whoever, so that's the red-eared sliders. If you're talking about any other general reptile rescue, it's the bearded dragons. You can buy one pretty cheap. But if you get all the stuff that you're supposed to get for them, and this is just like any reptile, it's expensive and they live a long time. And unfortunately, most people don't do the research and they get an animal and then it gets sick and then they get vet bills and then it dies and all sorts of other stuff.
SPEAKER_03I would think veterinarian care for reptiles is a specialty.
SPEAKER_00It is, and it's sometimes gonna be hard to find a specialized reptile vet. Luckily for me, there's a really good one here in Westminster, but some people it takes a while to find them. Even the one in Westminster, he's semi-retired and only works two days a week. But you know, the reptile hobby, I think, is really setting off, especially with my generation, younger people are really doing research. So I feel like the reptile veterinarian field should probably be on the rise. That's just much more in demand now than it used to be. Before it's like you get a turtle, it gets sick, and it dies, no one cares. You know, but now people really seem to care more, I think. You know, you hear the things from older generations, it's like the only good snake is a dead snake. Well, you know, younger people don't feel that way anymore. So the care of reptiles in general, I think, is gonna really boost that field up, hopefully. And then people don't have to drive two, three hours to find a reptile vet.
SPEAKER_03I come from a farm, and it's a multi-generational farm, and I have heard the only snake is a good snake, but I've also seen my father and grandfather get the black snakes from the rafters and put them down the holes that would break legs of the livestock, and the snakes come out with these little bitty lumps, and they were quite happy. And everybody lived and coexisted really well.
SPEAKER_00I love black snakes. Well, I love you know all animals, but even black snakes, they're a good snake to have. I would much rather have snakes in my house than mice and rats. They're gonna chew and pee and leave things everywhere. A snake, you're not even gonna know it's there unless you happen to see it. It's gonna just do you a favor and keep your mice away, you know.
SPEAKER_03I always think it's warm and they're gonna crawl in my bed with me.
SPEAKER_00Well, not unless you're sleeping in the basement. They like it cold and damp sometimes, so they're not gonna be upstairs in your bed.
SPEAKER_03I think of snakes as being warm and dry. I think attic.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's true too, but for the black snakes, you usually find them in the foundations in the dirt.
SPEAKER_03Snakes have always fascinated me in a way that I just can't quite explain because they have no legs they can climb up the walls. That is just incredibly fascinating for me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03We're standing in your facility and you have the Maryland turtle over here. The Maryland terrapin? The Maryland turtle.
SPEAKER_00Oh, diamondback terrapin.
SPEAKER_03Okay, tell me about it. It's in the water.
SPEAKER_00So they are a brackish water species. Depending on how you define terrapin, most people say that these are the only true terrapin because they define a terrapin as a brackish water turtle. So diamondback terrapins have a history with Maryland going back to the 1800s, where they were a very popular item in restaurants for soup. So in the turn of the century, the 19th century, they were almost hunted to extinction. Laws went into effect to protect them. Now they are illegal to take from the wild. They were endangered, they're not classified as endangered anymore, but they are definitely a Maryland staple, especially given their native range. Brackish water is not as abundant as a lot of other environments. So, you know, you have the Chesapeake Bay and a couple places in the Carolinas, but definitely the Chesapeake Bay, at least when I think of the Chesapeake Bay, I think about terrapins. They live out there and the brackish water, of course, brackish water being where the ocean meets freshwater. So you have a mix. So they're actually in a brackish water tank right there. A lot of usually it's in the breeding community. If you have captive bred diamondback terrapins, there are some breeders that will raise them in fresh water and they swear by it. You know, you raise them from birth in freshwater, people have done it successfully. However, it's sometimes more difficult to raise them in freshwater because you have to keep that water clean and perfect all the time. Otherwise, they can get skin issues because their skin is naturally made for the salt content. And the salt people have used it forever for cleaning and preserving and all that kind of stuff. So, really, I do brackish just because it's natural, but it also helps with their skin and their general health and keeping them, especially from skin and fungal diseases and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03Using the what's natural to keep them in good position. I think it might be a misconception that the box turtle is the Maryland turtle, but it's not.
SPEAKER_00No, it's the diamondback turtle. Yeah, and obviously you think of Maryland University, the terrapin.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00So there you have it.
SPEAKER_03So when we're out and we see the turtles, they're really not turtles, they're tortoises crossing the road.
SPEAKER_00Well, no. Okay. Turtles, generally aquatic. However, the box turtle changes that up a little bit to confuse people. And is a common question. So a box turtle is a turtle, it's not a tortoise. Maryland does not have any native tortoises. There's uh gopher tortoises and desert tortoises in the US, but they're not around here.
SPEAKER_03Those are the great big ones.
SPEAKER_00No, no, they're kind of small, they're not that big. The great big ones live over in like the Galapagos Islands and other islands, or Africa or South America for the Redfoots. But box turtles are more turtles because of their biology. You know, they're more closely related genetically to a turtle than a tortoise, even though they're terrestrial. So they're just kind of ones that break the general rule for box turtles. The diamondback terrapins. They're a terrapin, they're a turtle, they're aquatic. Now, most terrapins do like to get out and bask. Almost all your aquatic turtles, except for like sea turtles, but most of all your aquatic turtles do like to get out and bask because they absorb the sun's UVB rays. That is crucial to their development, their health, processing calcium and the phosphorus and the stuff that they need to have nice, strong, healthy shells and bones, they need sunlight. So they get out and they bask. So specialized lights and stuff. There's lots of research, and you know, people could talk for hours and hours on lighting alone. But the most general basic thing is that you need the proper UVB lighting to house these indoors.
SPEAKER_03Is that because on the inside they do have a skeleton on the inside, but it's an exoshell, a shell on the outside?
SPEAKER_00Not really an exoshell. That sounds more like a crustacean. Their spine, their bones, their shell, it's one. Their shell is part of their skeletal system. So it grows with them.
SPEAKER_03So it's not like a hermit crab where they can.
SPEAKER_00No, absolutely not. No. No, but you can even see the growth lines on most turtles and tortoises. You can see the growth lines of when they just keep getting bigger.
SPEAKER_02Since they're aquatic, and I see this guy has his head up above the water. Do they breathe underwater?
SPEAKER_00No, they don't breathe underwater.
SPEAKER_02They stay underwater for quite a long time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they can stay underwater for a long time. Most species up to an hour. And then depending on temperatures, sometimes even longer, because when it's colder, their metabolism slows down and they need less oxygen. So if it's colder, they can stay under longer. We can talk about brumation a little later as well, which is the turtle's version of hibernation where they can stay underwater for months.
SPEAKER_03When you talked about the Maryland turtle, the diamondback turtle, nearly being hunted to extinction, and you made an indication they were used for food. So turtle soup.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, terrapin soup was a delicacy in the Annapolis area, all the fancy restaurants, and everyone had to have it.
SPEAKER_03One of the things my mind went to was, if I remember correctly, the shells are like a fingerprint.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so everyone's shell is different. Actually, in fact, when I get a new turtle, I take a picture of the plastron, the carapace, and their face and everything for identification because I actually have a file on the log on my phone of every single turtle I have. Carapace being the top of the shell and plastron being the bottom.
SPEAKER_03Is that why in the fashion industry, tortoise shell combs, tortoise shell glasses, maybe patterns oftentimes you see. But with the industry in the early days of Maryland, was the tortoise shell actually used as the tortoise shell combs? Um the oyster shells were used as walkways after the meat was consumed, after the tortoises were consumed, were the shells then put into tortoise shell combs?
SPEAKER_00I'm not as familiar with that kind of history, but I know that they're used for decorations or for guitars and for all sorts of different stuff. You know, I've seen people do all sorts of stuff with turtle shells.
SPEAKER_01Interesting. Well, you know, like most farmers, they don't want to waste anything. Right. Right. So if they have this beautiful shower, they probably were doing decorative stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, jewelry and anything that you could think of.
SPEAKER_03So behind us, you've got this really interesting critter back here, and you have two of them.
SPEAKER_00These are both red-eared sliders, except the yellow one with the red eyes is albinos. That was actually a surrender as well. You know, people surrender turtles for various reasons, and 95% of all the turtles here are surrenders, but it's not as common I get an albino one, but it was a surrender. Now I keep it with this normal red-eared slider because this red-eared slider is not quite as normal as it looks. That red-eared slider is actually completely blind. So somebody had it for about 15 years that way and was hand feeding it every single day with like tweezers and stuff. I find that she's actually able to find food find, even being blind. You know, she just pokes her head around until she finds something and eats it when I do the floating pellets. But I use big floating pellets with her so that way she can feel them a little bit better. But I keep the albino with the blind one because I had a funny thought, and it proves to have been correct. Albinism in any animal limits their eyesight. So I thought, why don't we keep the blind with the blind, right? It'll limit the aggression. They're aware of each other's existence, of course, but neither of them have ever attempted or even shown any aggressive behavior whatsoever. So it works out pretty well because space is limited. I get 20, 30 requests a week to take more turtles. And I was like, really wanted to see if I could cohab this blind reddit slider with someone.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03Okay, interesting. The red slider on then colored and looks like a normal red slider is actually much larger. How old would that one be?
SPEAKER_00This one's only about 20 years old. And I say only because they can get much bigger. By the time they're 20, they're usually going to be full size. And the females for red-eared sliders get much bigger than the males. So this is an example of a full-grown female red-eared slider. They don't get too much bigger than this. Every once in a while you'll see an example that's bigger, but this is pretty normal size. So you can actually see she doesn't even have an eye on this side. Oh my goodness. This one is just completely useless.
SPEAKER_03The turtle that you just showed us, and when our listeners see it, it'll be online. It almost looks like a rock with its mouth open and a little vape.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a little lure. So that's the alligator snapping turtle. And it's one of my favorites. It's my son's favorite for sure. He but he just likes it because it's big and strong and scary. But this one's only two years old, and they use that lure to fish. They'll sit motionless like a rock under the water with that little lure in their mouth wiggling around until a fish comes in, and then they just close their mouth real fast, and there you go. There's dinner.
SPEAKER_03When you pulled it on and you were showing us about the pictures, you'll see your fingers and hands there. Yeah. He's not aggressive.
SPEAKER_00Well, there's a couple reasons for that. It's still pretty young, you know, so it's more scary to me. Well, I'm not scared of it, but it's more scary to me. But also, they're generally not as aggressive as a common snapping turtle, anyways. Even the bigger ones, you know, you pick them up and they're just, you know, they'll open their mouth real big and look real big and scary. And that's not to say you should just go around and handle them, but the commons are much more aggressive.
SPEAKER_03Out in the wild, they're wild animals. Here they're used to being handled.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but it's not like they've been domesticated genetically over thousands of years, like cats and dogs. They're still a wild animal, even though they are captive and living in a tank or whatever. So you still need to treat them like they could act that way at any time.
SPEAKER_03Interesting. We're learning lots today. And what I find interesting is everybody watches you when you walk. Don't you spend time with your critters? That or they want food for sure. Where are we now? I see a beautiful pond with lots of koi.
SPEAKER_00So this is my slider pond. This is full of red-eared sliders, yellow-bellied sliders, and some cooters. And then around in the weeds, there are box turtles. You can see them. There's one, two, three. There's usually one in this corner. Yeah, here's a few. So you've got your eastern box turtles here as well. But this pond is where I keep the full-grown sliders, or a good bit of them anyway.
SPEAKER_03This is a really interesting habitat. When you come to talk about habitats, are you being aware of food that you're planting in there? Is this a habitat for them?
SPEAKER_00Well, it's their habitat, but the turtles that are around here are eastern box turtles. Eastern box turtles are native. They're the ones that you see on the roads all the time. So, really, I didn't plant anything. This is their natural habitat. I let it grow naturally. Obviously, I dug the ponds for the red-eared sliders. Talk about red-eared sliders a lot because they are a huge problem in the rescue business, especially for reptiles and turtle keepers. They're just the most common pet. You see that one that just came out of the water. But there are some other species in there. There's cooters and stuff like that, which a lot of people don't know that there's over a dozen species of cooters all over the place, too. This is a northern red-bellied cooter. So this is the only cooter species native to Maryland. And I've seen a lot of them. Actually, I saw them in the wild at the CNO Canal. There was a lot of them over there. This is a really pretty turtle. All the time about, you know, putting turtles in their ponds. But it seems like most of the time they just have a pond and they want me to put some turtles in it, or they want to get a turtle. And I'm like, okay, well, what happens when it gets out? What do you mean? They said it'll get out, it'll walk away, you it'll escape. So you have to enclose your pond. Now you can enclose it right there where the water is, or you can give it a bunch of land. I think you should give it a bunch of land. Some, especially the females, they like to come out and they like to dig a little bit, especially when they're laying eggs. It helps them so they don't become grab and females can lay eggs even without a male. They're not going to be fertile, but they still need to do that. And then another trick is curling the top or having some sort of lip edge because believe it or not, they will climb, they will test it out and they can climb, and that way they don't get out, they'll just fall back inside the enclosure.
SPEAKER_01They have little claws.
SPEAKER_00They do.
SPEAKER_01Do you have to trim those?
SPEAKER_00No. No, not with the sliders. The males actually have longer front nails. That's an easy way to tell a male apart from a female. But no, I've never had a slider that needed a trim. Now it's common with pet tortoises because people don't provide ways for them to naturally trim their nails, which would be rocks. For me, like with the Russian tortoises, that's the most common, that's the smallest, easiest in some ways. And common pet tortoise is the Russian tortoise. And they all the time have overgrown beaks and claws. For the beaks, you should provide cuddle bone. They can naturally trim that. And then for the nails, what I like to do is have a big patio stone in there right underneath their basking light. So they're walking and scratching that patio stone, similar to like you think about dogs' nails on pavement. You know, it trims down their nails. Especially if you get one that already has long nails, you're gonna have to take care of that. It's more to maintain it, it's not gonna like fix it if it's already an issue.
SPEAKER_03And when you see beaks, that's not on all the tortoises and all the turtles. It's only on select ones.
SPEAKER_00I would think most, I mean, they all have mouths, and some of their beaks are more obvious than others, but they don't have teeth. You know, they do some of them have serrated edges on their beaks, which they grow naturally in the wild just from the food and stuff that they're ripping apart and tearing. You know, they will eat carrion if they find it. You most species are opportunistic. I think mealworms. Yeah, crickets. Mealworms, crickets, but your tortoise species, most of them are grazers, need like grasses and weeds and dark leafy greens.
SPEAKER_03And that would be a nutritional component for their diet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, especially like your Russians, your sulcatas, leopard tortoises. They have a high fiber diet needs. So we're talking grass and dandelion and stuff like that. That's the best for them. Hay. Hay is a great staple, like orchard or uh Timothy hay. And when you're talking into the greens, you could have like kale. I love feeding them cactus. I feed a lot of cactus. There's actually a Latino market in town that donates cactus to me constantly because cactus is high in fiber, but it also has a lot of water in it. That's a great food that I like to use, especially during the winter time when sometimes it can be harder to keep them hydrated. But I like cactus and kale and collards. Lettuce, a lot of people always think, oh, lettuce, they eat a lot of lettuce. And they will, but it's not very nutritional for them. I pretty much just do lettuce for tours because you get the romaine, it's real long, and the kids can hold it and feed them. It's not doing much nutritional value, but they'll eat it gladly. It's not gonna hurt them, but it just doesn't have the nutrients they need.
SPEAKER_03That makes sense. So a lot of fiber. How do you know if a turtle or a tortoise is not getting their nutritional needs met? Well, it can be really hard to tell at first.
SPEAKER_00You need to be really cued into their behavior. It could start with lethargy or maybe their eyes can get a little cloudy sometimes or things. It can be really subtle, stuff you have to really pay attention to, maybe even in just changes in their personality. Because I definitely think that tortoises have personality, they all have different personalities. When you start to get to know them, some are more bold than others. But then in severe cases, it'll definitely start to show. And usually when it starts to show, you're already in an emergency situation, whether it be like their shells can get soft or they can start pyramiding, or maybe they start developing kidney issues or different things like that, runny stools. So it's it's a bunch of different stuff. But usually when it's symptoms that like any Joe Schmoe could just see looking at it, is already to a pretty severe state. But they're very tough, and oftentimes they can come back from that stuff, but it can leave lasting deformities, which I can actually show you on some of these tortoises over here. Looks like they're coming out because of the sun, so that's good. Sheldon here. Sheldon did not have a proper diet growing up, so what this is called as pyramiding should have more of a smooth shell. So that's something that Sheldon's gonna have for his whole life because it's not like it just like corrects itself once you start the right thing. It won't get worse, and maybe over many, I'm talking like decades, it might even start to be a little less noticeable. That but that's something that'll carry for years and years and years. So this one I've raised since a teeny little baby, and that's more what it should look like. I'm getting a lot of donations lately, which has been great as far as food donations. One lady, she actually gave me her two redfoot tortoises a few years ago, just because she was getting older, but she's very involved with what I do. She even volunteers here sometimes and she brings me food almost weekly now, even though she surrendered two animals to me. She comes and visits them and brings me things, and she's a very nice lady. So she brought me a lot of that stuff that I just fed them here this morning.
SPEAKER_03I had no idea that people surrendered girls and tortoises as regular.
SPEAKER_00It's crazy, especially now with some visibility, and especially when my website went live. It's gotten to the point where I actually decline 95% of it now because I just don't have the room. But it's pretty much limited to very special cases right now. Or maybe like a species that isn't represented here. Because while I care about all animals, I do try to keep a diverse set of species for the tours and stuff because that's how I continue to pay for them. Can you guess the biggest expense for the turtle farm?
SPEAKER_01Water bill.
SPEAKER_00I'm on a well.
SPEAKER_01I would say food, but if you're getting a lot of food donations.
SPEAKER_00The electric bill.
SPEAKER_01The electric bill.
SPEAKER_00So 80 degrees. Yep. All the filters, all the lamps, all the heat lights, the shed, especially in the winter. And that shed I'm very proud of. That shed was already here, and I still poured thousands of dollars into building that shed, and I'll show it to you here in a second. It was just an old goat shed that I retrofitted to be a completely climate-controlled reptile house. Fixed up the inside, studded it, insulated it, ran electric to it, and everything that you can think of. So that actually stays 80 degrees. This February we had, I think it was 13 days below freezing, 80 degrees there the whole time. And that doesn't happen just because I blast heat. You know, I could go in there and sometimes the heat would be off because it's all controlled by thermostat sensors. I actually maintain it. I don't just blast heat. That's because of all the work that went into insulating it. Those floors insulated, the ceilings insulated, the walls, 10 tubes of cult for all the themes.
SPEAKER_03I'm looking at some of the tortoises, and some have shells that go down, and some have shells that go up. Sometimes they just grow different ways.
SPEAKER_00Back there on the left is Toby and on the right is Keith. So that's Toby and Keith. These are Sulkata tortoises, and they were surrendered together, actually. Their previous owner had them for over 20 years. They actually adopted them from the Mid-Atlantic Turtle and Tortoise Society, which I've worked with from time to time. I really respect that organization. Katrina, who runs that organization, has been here and we collaborate sometimes. But they were adopted over 20 years ago from the Mid-Atlantic Turtle and Tortoise Society. The people that surrendered them just had had them 20 years and they were getting older and moving into a condo. I don't ever think poorly on anybody that's surrendering a turtle. Everybody's situation is different. But I definitely don't think poorly of someone that had them 20 years. Like you put in some time, you know, what are you gonna do when you're a hundred years old? What I thought was interesting is that they had these tortoises for over 20 years and they never named them. So I named them Toby and Keith. Normally, I keep the names of all the animals that are surrendered to me. It's just easier that way. I don't have to think of it. Like Sheldon here, Lola, that's Clarence, Morla. They all had names, but I named Toby and Keith.
SPEAKER_03I like that you know them by names, you know their personality.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, and that's Sammy down there. And then the little one behind Toby is Potato.
SPEAKER_03Toby and Keith really look like they were very loved and respected because their shoes are in really good shape.
SPEAKER_00They came here with no issues. It just was a thing of the owners that have gotten a little older. And I've grown very fond of them. I've had them now for three years. And three years with giant silcadas in Maryland is we're talking three winters. That's normally what I think about because you're keeping large tortoises in winter here. These guys can't be in prolonged temperatures under 60 degrees. You know, they need to be able to warm up, they need to be able to regulate. This is actually an arid grassland species from Africa. They would not survive here in our winter. And sometimes people try to keep them here during winter, and what ends up happening is they get sick and they get there. It's very common for these guys to get respiratory infections due to the cold and stuff like that or improper care. And once they get a respiratory infection, that's a death sentence, unless you get them to a vet and get antibiotics. Because the way their respiratory system works is not like a mammal, where if they get a cold, they'll just cough it up or whatever. These guys' mucus will continue to grow, continue to build them, fill up their lungs, and eventually kill them. Now, sometimes it can take up to even a year, but you still need to take colds in tortoises very seriously.
SPEAKER_03So to keep them through the winter, Toby and Keith have been in Maryland for a long time. We're looking at several tortoises walking around in their area. Do they go into the shed for the winter where it's 80 degrees? And do they hibernate?
SPEAKER_00No, they don't hibernate. This species does not hibernate or in turtles and tortoises is called brumation. They do not brumate. Every once in a while, you find people online that swear that they do it. It's not natural, it's not healthy. These species do not bromate or hibernate in the wild. There are lots of turtle species that do. This is not one of them. You know, a lot of people think that this is a desert species. You know, it's close to a desert species, but it's actually a grassland species, and there's a difference. You know, you think of Africa, you think of hot, you think of desert. So sometimes people just blast heat, put them in sand, and that's not good for them either. Actually, in the wild, they like to burrow down and seek moisture, seek humidity and stuff in their arid climates as well. So I naturally have shade, which is nice. You know, there's trees and stuff out here, but I still provide them places to hide and stuff. So they can regulate themselves. If they want to be in the sun, they'll be in the sun. And if they don't, they'll move, you know, as long as you have a place for them to move that they can get shade.
SPEAKER_03Do they like to be touched?
SPEAKER_00Um, I'm not sure if they like it, but they tolerate it and they can feel it too. But sort of similar to like the sensation you feel when you touch a fingernail, so they can feel it.
SPEAKER_03Interesting. We're learning so much today. What do you have back here?
SPEAKER_00There's a leopard tortoise, and that guy is hiding in the igloo right now. The leopard tortoise is another grassland species from Africa. Pretty similar to a Silkata. Even in captivity, they've interbred before, although there's lots of different thoughts and opinions about crossbreeding, you know, and it's not something that I do, but just to kind of give you an idea of how similar in species they are. Now, this is just a little one, but leopard tortoises are the fourth largest tortoise species in the world. So a big leopard tortoise can still get maybe the size of leg Morela down there or, you know, Sheldon over here. I have redfoot tortoises, see if any of them are out. German's tortoises, which are very closely related to Russians. They are a popular tortoise pet. They don't get very big. You know, these are all full grown. They do require certain stuff, just like every other animal does, but they stay small, which keeps them easy. They don't need it particularly humid, which is also easier for many people. But again, in a grassland species, they can have a variety of things, but dark greens and grass and grazing. Now, the only trick with these guys, and sometimes when kids are over and we're doing stuff, I'll say, what is different about this enclosure than the rest of them? And the answer is, well, first, this is a two by ten. I've got that thing sunk in like seven, eight inches in the ground. And then I've also got a lip on the top because these guys are excellent diggers and climbers. You know, you wouldn't think climbers, but these guys are great climbers. So you got to keep these enclosures, especially if you do outdoors, escape proof. A lot of people say, are those nails overgrown? No, that's how they're supposed to be because they're good diggers, they're good climbers. They're only overgrown when they start to curl. You know, if they're going straight out like that, that is actually normal. So when you say climb, do they go up trees? Um, they would. It just depends if they can get their claws into it. I haven't observed it myself, but I've definitely observed them climbing up wooden enclosures, especially when you get to the corners, they can just dig their claws in and get up the corners and stuff like that. So when I was first started keeping Russian tortoises, I had an enclosure with timbers. They got out of that thing left and right. You know, they just climb right out.
SPEAKER_03Do they have predators? You have a lot of open air. And do they have predators?
SPEAKER_00You have to keep an eye out for raccoons, is a big one. Rats is another one, maybe a fox. Usually raccoons is their number one predator. A lot of people would recommend, and it's probably not a bad idea, is completely screening the tops of these. However, I haven't had any issues myself. I have cameras looking at everything. Sometimes I'll even have like lights on around here. Now, I do get raccoons here. You know, I actually had a raccoon. I saw it on that camera, it climbed right over here the other day. But for whatever reason, they leave them alone. You know, and a lot of times too, like they'll go and hide too at night. They're not just sitting out at night, they'll go in their hides, they'll go under the leaves, you know, knock on wood until there's an issue. And I've been doing this out here five years now, there hasn't been a predator attack.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_00And there's a lot of tree cover and stuff that protects you from like diving predators, like birds and stuff like that, because they need a lot more room to dive.
SPEAKER_03Do turtles actually get aggressive with each other?
SPEAKER_00They do. So if you're gonna keep them together, there's a couple of key things to do, and it doesn't guarantee that they won't be aggressive, but it can help deter it is visual barriers and then just space. You've got to have space, you gotta have a lot of room for them. If you put two red-yard sliders and a 40-gallon tank, they're gonna fight, they're gonna bump, they're gonna bite each other. Let me get a picture of that. That's Barbara right there, and her previous owner is just worried, sick, and wanting updates of her every single day. She just surrendered Barbara about a month ago. It's the big one in front of the one getting on it right now.
SPEAKER_03They all look very content.
SPEAKER_00I like to think so. It's hard to, I mean, they don't really display emotion, so sometimes it's hard, but they don't seem stressed, in my opinion. They don't exhibit behavior that would show that they're stressed. That other big one that's swimming right there, that's a Florida red-bellied cooter named Luna. And Luna, her previous owner, died suddenly and ended up with me. I mean, that happens a good bit. I have a lot of turtles here where their previous owners had passed away.
SPEAKER_03In nature, what is the turtle and tortoises' function?
SPEAKER_00Whew! That's a good one. Well, every single animal out there has its own function. You know, a lot of the water turtles are like nature's little cleanups, you know, they'll take care of dead things in the water or things floating around. A lot of tortoises are keystone species in their natural habitats, digging burrows and for protection for lots of other animals and things like that. So it's hard to like narrow it down generally, but each species has their own role.
SPEAKER_03What do you enjoy about doing this? Is it educating? What is it? This is obviously a passion project. In your voice, we hear the passion.
SPEAKER_00I like them. They're very calming. I like to watch them. You know, sometimes in the morning before work, I'll just sit out here and watch them swimming around. Lately, I really enjoy educating with the tours. You know, you can call it entertainment or you can call it education. I like to think it's a little bit of both. People bring their kids. It's very popular with families or moms to come over here with their kids and just seeing how excited the kids get, and I'm able to teach them things about it, especially from a young age. One of the biggest lessons I try to teach everybody is to leave wild animals wild. So I will preach that while I'm here many times as we're going over all the native species. If a turtle is native that I have, I'll tell them this is a native species in our area, like the spotted turtle, the diamondback terrapin. You've got the eastern painted turtles and eastern box turtles and the snapping turtles. I've got all those here for them to see. These are native, and if you want to continue being able to see these animals, you need to leave them where they are. It goes even deeper than that. A lot of these native species I have were wild caught, but they're not wild caught from me. Obviously, I wouldn't do that. I'm against that. But many people either they weren't educated about the dangers of it, or whether that just be because of local conservation or because of the law. It's illegal to take many species from the wild, anyways, but then also it affects the ecosystems in which they live in because they're so long-lived. You know, you take a female box turtle out of the wild, that's 60 years of eggs that are gone. So it impacts people more than you think. But the reason I have wild-caught turtles is because people don't know any better. And like that box turtle was someone's pet for 20 years. DNR says, for a variety of reasons, that after 30 days, you cannot release a turtle back into the wildest but in captivity. So it is actually illegal to release a wild turtle. So the Maryland State Herpetologist for the DNR, her name is Beth Schlimm, and I attended a meeting one time and she used the term functionally dead, which I in turn have started to use a lot too, because a captive native reptile is functionally dead. It is not contributing in any way to the local ecosystem at all anymore, and it never will because it can't release it now. So that's what you're doing when you take, especially some of the ones that are much more threatened, like the eastern painted turtle. Technically, you can take one of those from the wild if you want to, although I still strongly think that you shouldn't. But like some species, like the three turtles in Maryland currently, under current laws that you cannot take from the wild, is the spotted turtle, the diamondback terrapin, and the northern wood turtle. And for good reason, they're really falling in population. One of my favorites, the spotted turtle, I would be thinking that there might even make them to be completely illegal to even have in the near future, and they might protect them similar to they do bog turtles because their numbers are really going down. Their habitat is similar to the bog turtle. They're not as prolific of breeders as some of your sliders and your other turtles. You know, they only lay a few eggs at a time. Being so small, add that with habitat destruction. But it's not a one-sided argument. You know, there are many responsible breeders, and historically, a lot of times breeders have been the reason that animals don't go extinct. You know, private breeders help restore populations after, for whatever reason, maybe the government wasn't able to regulate it in an effective way, coupled with habitat loss, coupled with just people that don't do research about these kinds of things.
SPEAKER_03Do you offer classes or consultations for people who want to learn how to care for their animals? Or if they've made a generational plan when 20 years is up, my kid takes it, my grandparents pass it on. Do you consult for those folks?
SPEAKER_00I don't currently have any official program or consultation for that, but I do get asked a lot, and usually I just give that advice for free. You know, somebody's asking me about that. And you're talking about generational, you know, obviously you should think about what's going to happen to your turtle once you pass. A lot of people put them in their wills, but I think that you should do it before then. You're like, don't wait until you die for your turtle to get passed on to someone. Do it while you're living so you can make sure that it's going to a good place, it's going to a right setup. You can put the tortoise in your will. You know, if you haven't had a really strong conversation with that person receiving the tortoise, you don't know when you're going to die. And then all of a sudden they've got to get something together. I think that you should do it. When you are at the age where you can't take care of the turtle yourself anymore, maybe that's when you should be thinking about who's taking this turtle next. And as far as husbandry and advice, I try to keep my interactive posts, especially on the Facebook. One day I'll post, hey, here's the best way to build a Russian enclosure. Hey, here's where Salmonella comes from. Here's how you do this, here's how you do that. And I'll even pin posts and people can search through the page and find my ramblings and rantings on whatever subject. Or people message me all the time, and I can't respond to all messages sometimes in a timely manner. But I usually get back. You know, I'm sitting at home in the evening after I've done everything for the day, and I'll I'll respond to people. I usually try to help as best I can.
SPEAKER_03If people want to come see and visit, how do we do that?
SPEAKER_00So it's by appointment only, and you set up an appointment just by sending me a message, and then I send you the details, and that can be done on the website, Facebook, or Instagram.
SPEAKER_03And what's that website?
SPEAKER_00Deansturtlefarm.com.
SPEAKER_03And your Facebook?
SPEAKER_00Dean's Turtle Farm.
SPEAKER_03Yep. I love it. I appreciate you letting us come into your world here. Yeah, absolutely. Dean of Dean's Turtle Farm, thank you for bringing us here on a listening trip. We'll see you on pictures, and people can come see you via your Facebook. Thank you for sharing the turtle world and the tortoise world, everything from axolotles to tortoises, making some connections in our community.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_03I hope the connections we've raised today stay with you and do engage your community through critters, companions, commerce, and agriculture. Join me again next week. We'll make some more connections.
SPEAKER_01This program is a production of Raising Connections Media Company, hosted and produced by Rick Ann Mayer, coordinated by Beverly McGelroy, and edited and mixed by Robin Temple.