Turtle Breeding
Turtle breeding is much the same whether you have land or water turtles. But before you start turtle breeding, you should carefully consider the reasons why you want to breed turtles and what will become of them. You cannot release turtles into the wild and many people who want to buy turtles are just doing so out of curiosity, or fun, or because their child just had to have one as they were so cute. These kinds of people will get sick of the responsibility of caring for a pet who can live as long as thirty years, and the truth is, they will stop caring for it and the turtle will die. Turtle breeding demands a certain responsibility when it comes to providing the turtles homes. You should make this commitment before you get started.
The first thing you need in turtle breeding is a pair of healthy turtles that are old enough to be sexually mature. This is usually around five years of age for females and three years of age for males. Although it is not an absolute necessity, experts recommend that you cool your turtles before breeding. It produces the best results. That means that for six to eight weeks in January and February, you turn the heat in the turtles living area down to 50-60 degrees. Just leave the turtles to themselves. They will not eat during this time. It is a kind of induced hibernation.
After cooling is done, if the turtles are comfortable in their environment, they will mate. It is easier with outdoor turtles than with indoor ones. You need to provide a nesting area--a box with around twelve inches of soil, sand or moss. Once the mother turtle has laid her eggs, remove them and incubate them in a box. The incubation box needs to have moist Vermiculate. Make impressions in the Vermiculate and lay the eggs in them. The eggs must never be turned over--some people mark a tiny dot on the top of the eggs with a magic marker. Turtle eggs are soft--they do not have the hard shell of most other eggs. They are moist and sometimes the eggs will even stick together. If they do, don’t pull them apart.
Close and seal your incubation box and make air holes in the top. It needs to be kept at a temperature of 82 degrees to produce equal numbers of male and female turtles. You should have baby turtles in 60 to 120 days. After they have hatched, be sure to keep the baby turtles separate from the adults.
You will need to provide a well-balanced diet, feeding at least once a day Even though the baby turtles will probably eat only the meat items at first, fruits and vegetables still need to be provided.
All that is left is to find buyers who truly love and appreciate turtles, and who understand they are caring for a life.