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Yellow Bellied Slider Breeding

22 16:03:21

Question
QUESTION: Hello Jeannie,
I am 15 years old and really interested in turtles. i have a femail and a male! I want to breed them. was just wondering how old do they have to be at least to breed. I want to do it my self really, dont want to take the eggs to a pet shop n faf arround. currently i have them a tank with only heated and filtered water with a level that they can climb on to but with nothing there. what can i change to make it good breeding conditions?
can they eat out of water cause i put them veg sometimes but never seen them eat it. maybee there scared i dont know?

if you can answer the questions it would be a great help!
Thanks alot
Robert .

ANSWER: Hi Robert,

I'm gong to give you some links to care sheets that will help you to improve your turtles' environment.  The #1 rule for breeding any reptile is to first consider if there's a need for it.  Will you be able to find good homes for the offspring?  Is this a species that often winds in rescues?  If you plan to keep the offspring, will you have the room, time, and money to properly care for them?  The second rule is that healthy adults produce healthy offspring.  That means your primary concern should be to have your turtles in the best conditions possible.  Plenty of room to swim and bask, good water quality, proper temperatures, good UVB, and a good, varied diet are all very important.  And yes, they do need to eat in the water!  

Maturity in turtles is based on size, not age.  Females will get quite a bit bigger than males, and to be breeding size would need to be in the 6 to 7" range.  They'll often mate at smaller sizes, but to carry eggs the females need the larger body size--they also tend to have more viable eggs when they're bigger.  Also be aware that if your turtles are still small, immature turtles look female.  You should also know that males can be extremely persistent and many will harass a female constantly, so you should be prepared to have separate tanks set up for the female's health and safety.  An alternative is to add another female, but you would need a very large tank in order to do this (at least 150 gallons).  

Water turtles lay their eggs on land, so you'll have to provide a land area or nesting box with sufficient depth for her to lay her eggs (roughly the length of her body plus a few more inches).  If she's not able to find a good place to lay, she'll either retain the eggs (not good for her) or simply lay off the basking platform in the water.  Eggs laid in the water are unlikely to remain viable for very long.  For the best chance of hatching, eggs should be removed and placed in an incubator (Hovabator).  

My best advice is to first, make sure your adult turtles are in excellent health.  Do as much research as you can on proper care and how to set up the best environment possible for them.  Then decide whether you really do want to breed, and go from there.

Here's some links for you that should help more:

http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Care/cs-yellowbelly.htm
www.redearslider.com (obviously this site is for RES, but the care really is about the same and there's some good information there)
http://www.chelonia.org/Articles/bcwaterturtles.htm (general water turtle information)
http://www.chelonia.org/Articles/trachemyscare.htm
http://bss.sfsu.edu/holzman/courses/fall01%20projects/reslider.htm (this is a good academic paper and has some resources for further reading at the end)
http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Care/caresheet-red_ear_slider.htm



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: hello,
thanks for the help and advice!
i do know people and family who want them n keep pestering me do breed them but i wasnt sure what to do so i did some research n came to this website.
so are the femails bigger than males?
because when i did some searcing on the net one page said that males are alot bigger than femails :S ?
Thanks again!
Robert!

Answer
Hi Robert,

Just make sure they understand that these turtles can live 30+ years and that water turtles are a serious commitment in terms of space, time, and money.  It would be a good idea to write up a detailed care sheet for anyone taking a hatchling, so you can be sure that they'll take good care of it.  Also be aware that sliders tend to lay large clutches (10 or more eggs) and will often lay multiple clutches, so you could easily end up with 30 or more eggs.  If they all hatch, that's a lot of turtles!  

Female turtles and tortoises are typically bigger than the males.  In sliders, females are usually considerably bigger than males--often twice as big.  I would be very suspicious of a site that said males are larger, because anyone who knows sliders would know the opposite is true.