Herpetology
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Nothing wrong with that, it's the only way I do it... and I still use 25 watt incandescent party globes as the heat source in my incubators.
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Probably has a lot more to do with my OCD and not being willing to "gamble" turtle eggs on a new method I haven't tried before just so I can say "oh yeah that works too" because if I botched it and lost a season's eggs I'd be pretty p'd at myself. I also stock-piled incandescent globes once they stopped making them and everything went LED. So I'll be incubating turtle eggs this way for several years yet. LolWow! It's like I've just logged into 5 years before APS was launched!
It's obviously still doing the job for you, and you're obviously an 'If it ain't broke...' kinda guy! In a way it's nice to see something so old school still being (successfully!) used.
Hehe I don't know how it works with snakes (breeding wise) but if I wanted to not breed my turtles this year, I'd of had to separate the males and females back in 2015... A female turtle will store sperm from every one single mating with multiple males and use it to produce viable fertile eggs for the next 4 years... and each individual clutch can be fathered by 5 males... crazy stuff. She can select stored sperm from up to 5 males to fertilise any individual egg in any clutch. A clutch of 5 hatchies can all have different fathers.I got 16 eggs as well and I didn’t want to breed this year as I wanted to let my female get some more size made the mistake of putting her in the aviary with a male for one night early October after the male had resumed feeding and we had a cold snap that evening it seems the less effort you put in the better the result I almost feel guilty for the people that repeatedly try to breed with bad results
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And mine are cooking happily in semi dry clumping vermiculite in my beer esky which took me ten minutes to set up same setup as last year with 100 percent hatch
Probably has a lot more to do with my OCD and not being willing to "gamble" turtle eggs on a new method I haven't tried before just so I can say "oh yeah that works too" because if I botched it and lost a season's eggs I'd be pretty p'd at myself. I also stock-piled incandescent globes once they stopped making them and everything went LED. So I'll be incubating turtle eggs this way for several years yet. Lol
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Temperate or tropical requires little variation... the true challenge with breeding turtles begins when you start artificially incubating eggs laid by species that require a diapuase period of more than one month with a gradual 1° per day reduction in temperature until the minimum is reached and sustained for a period before being increased by 1° per day until the maximum is reached, while factoring in an incubation temperature hysterisis of 1.5° like say for Macrochelodina expansa (which can take up to 192 days to hatch) or Elseya irwini where if you screw that up, all your eggs will perish... or... they'll hatch severely deformed turtles that will die within hours of hatching. Then you have the northern long neck - Chelodina oblonga, the only species that purposely lays its eggs underwater.Having said that, I've only played with common, cold turtles, not tropical specialists.
That's amazing! I'd like to know how someone proved up to 5 father's of a single clutch? Im guessing DNA tests?Hehe I don't know how it works with snakes (breeding wise) but if I wanted to not breed my turtles this year, I'd of had to separate the males and females back in 2015... A female turtle will store sperm from every one single mating with multiple males and use it to produce viable fertile eggs for the next 4 years... and each individual clutch can be fathered by 5 males... crazy stuff. She can select stored sperm from up to 5 males to fertilise any individual egg in any clutch. A clutch of 5 hatchies can all have different fathers.
This is why the integrity of freshwater turtle genetics in the wild in Australia is royally screwed thanks to ignorant morons dumping their unwanted pets in waterways far beyond their natural range.
Yep.That's amazing! I'd like to know how someone proved up to 5 father's of a single clutch? Im guessing DNA tests?
Temperate or tropical requires little variation... the true challenge with breeding turtles begins when you start artificially incubating eggs laid by species that require a diapuase period of more than one month with a gradual 1° per day reduction in temperature until the minimum is reached and sustained for a period before being increased by 1° per day until the maximum is reached, while factoring in an incubation temperature hysterisis of 1.5° like say for Macrochelodina expansa (which can take up to 192 days to hatch) or Elseya irwini where if you screw that up, all your eggs will perish... or... they'll hatch severely deformed turtles that will die within hours of hatching. Then you have the northern long neck - Chelodina oblonga, the only species that purposely lays its eggs underwater.
I'm in no hurry to ditch vermiculite & party globes.
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