General Care Discussion :: Questions about Five-Foot

[wilamh]

When looking for a res for my mother, I went into a locally run pet store and came across something differant. My mother was interested in getting another female because, well, she just wanted another. While watching the selection that was there, my then five year-old amazed the herp person by identifing, correctly, male from female. The person was so happy that we took the time to keep learning for our selves and teach the kids, that she showed me a turtle that came in and she wasn't sure how to handle his future. He has a bone spur on his left front leg. He was given to me when I bought another female.

I have not had a lot of experiance with a growth of this kind. What I am intrested in learning is, is this something hereditary or is it just a fluke of nature. It doesn't seem to bother him at all, the person gave him to me because she didn't feel that she would be able to find him a buyer due to his apperance. The family named him Five-Foot. I have another pet store owner that would be interested in incubating some of the eggs (if we get any), should I be concerned about him passing on this charctureistic, or should he find another place to be when the other turtles get about their bussiness?

[rocketright]

Umm, That's not good when you get a diffrent gender at a deiffrent time of getting your first turtle and putting them in the same aquarium. Your turtles are going to bite eachother, and should be moved to diffrent aquariums ASAP.. And let me remind you they should have an aquarium that is 10 gallons per shell inch. Are they RES? I would not breed res if I were you, there are way to many, and unless you or the pet owner has tanks that will be 10 gallons per inch of their shell length... Please adopt more or something instead of breeding them.

[industrial_girl_2000]

Hey Wilamh, welcome to the forum!

Do you have a picture of this bone deformity? It sounds like maybe the turtle broke his leg a while back and it didn't heal properly, causing a spur. Only a vet's x-ray could tell you *exactly* what is going on with that spur though.

FYI: there is no need to breed RES's. They are actually overpopulated in the world, and in some cases are taking over in areas where they are not native because people buy them when they are tiny babies, and then release them when they get "too big" for the owners to care for them. The best thing to do would be NOT to breed any RES's, and to separate the male from the female into separate tanks since they tend to fight when the female rejects the males' mating advances. Not to mention, the egg-laying from a female turtle can get *excessive* in captivity which makes turtle-keeping into a JOB rather than a hobby due to all the cleaning & extra care that a pregnant female requires (believe me, I KNOW, and I wasn't even trying to breed my turtles, it just happened!). A gravid ("pregnant") female will constantly frantically be trying to get out of the tank to lay her eggs and she may retain them if the conditions aren't right. Retaining eggs can lead to her death if one of them breaks inside her body and you can never be fully sure she laid them all unless you go to a vet and have an x-ray done.

There was a very sad TV show on animal planet last weekend about a 25-yr old turtle that had 12 eggs inside of her and couldn't lay them even after the vet injected her with oxytocin (a hormone to help induce laying). She was going to die if they didn't do something quickly so the owner decided to allow the vets to operate the eggs out. Some of them were already calcified in her body ("hardened" due to not being able to lay them) and there were so many eggs in there that they were putting pressure on the turtles' internal organs. In short, they removed the eggs, but the turtle died anyway due to "never waking up from the anesthesia". It was very very very sad. And I am sure that the owner paid a HEFTY vet bill for that operation. Can you imagine paying thousands of dollars for that operation only to have your turtle die at the end of that????? I cried when I saw the conclusion of that operation because I have a turtle that is over 17 yrs old and I know how I would feel if she died because of gravid eggs. And the worst part about it is that some female turtles just lay eggs without a male present, like chickens. So anyone with a female turtle can be susceptible to having a pregnant ("gravid") turtle.

Turtle breeding should only be done by a turtle-expert. The saying "don't try this at home" really applies here. Good luck.

[wilamh]

The larger res have been together in the same encloser for about five years and getting along quite well. The warm snap that we just had brought them out of hibernation a little earlier than I would have liked, but when put back into their outdoor encloser they had no trouble returning to their regular routiens. The setup that they are in is quite large. When they were in doors, the four oldest, two male and two female, were in a 50 gallon tank and there were never any problems with their temperments. Just lucky I guess. We had the babies in a smaller tank that was eaiser to controll the tempurter and such in. When the need to place them outdoors came about, the babies were old and big enough to fit in with the older four. In the year and a half that they have been together outdoors, there haven't been any problems, so far.

As for the breeding, we only intend to incubate a few of the eggs, and then only for educational reasons with the school that my youngest attends and the school that the pet store works with, and to keep maby one or three for myself and my sons. There is no way on earth that I would even attempt to incubate all of the eggs. Gargantua and her sister are about nine inches from stem to stern and from what I understand they can have up to 3 clutches of up to twenty egges each. I would never even think of flooding the market with a possibilty of 120 baby turtles.

In having them in a large enclouser out doors, I am able to create an area for the females to lay eggs. I was not aware that females would spontainously lay eggs without a male was preasent, however I had read that reaceantly and was already making modificatione their enclouser. They have been outdoor turtles for about a year and a half now, and have adapted well to thier enviornment.

5-foot was captured in the wild from what the pet store told me. They said that he had been hit by a car. I never thought of a broken leg. I will try to get a picture of it in the next few days and post it.