General Care Discussion :: two turtles - boy and girl

[saskturtle]

We are just able to determine sex of our 2 small turtles. I think they are a boy and girl. Should I be worried about separating them. I do not want to breed. THey have been together since they were very small and seem to get along fine. No aggression by either one.

[megcornell]

Out of curiosity how have you determined their sexes? If they're under 4" it's nearly impossible. The shell curve method that works with some other breeds doesn't seem to hold true for RES.

Regardless of whether a female turtle comes into contact with a male, she'll lay eggs. So if one turns out to be female she'll eventually need access to a nest site either way. If your turtles do turn out to be males and females there's no need to actually hatch the eggs, they can be cracked once they are laid and humanely destroyed.

RES are severely over-populated as it is, so you're being very responsible in not wanted to add to the problem by further breeding them.

[Rubicon]

Mine are a little over 3 and it's plain as day which is a male and female.

Male = longer claws, huge tail, smaller

Female = short front claws, small tall, pretty big

[turtles are wicked]

same for me, a male and a female, one is a miss map turtle and one is a yellow bellied slider, i used the same rule as Rubicon, i only knew 100% that Rocky was a male when he was fanning, ewwwwwwwww

[TurtleLover_S&B]

Yeah,males have longer claws and bigger tails.Females have shorter claws,and a smaller and chunkier tail.