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I just found out my slider was a female. I learned about "nesting" and about how a turtle lays the eggs, etc.

I read that I have to create a nesting area for my RES who is a little over one years old but already has a carapace length of 4 1/2 to 5 in! I am not sure if she is sexually mature yet.

Anyway, how do I go about creating a nesting area for my turtle in a 40 gal. tank? I read you use a mixture of sand and substrate or potting soil...

If anybody could please give some info or pictures It would be great! Thank you so much!

Gravid females, according to what people say around here, usually refuse food, may get "morning sickness" or seem slightly inactive. They usually try to escape like crazy. The way to know for sure if she has eggs, is to GENTLY feel the flap of skin in front of their back knees. That should feel very hard.

Females are sexually mature when they reach four or more inches.

A nesting box should have a substrate your female can dig through. Maybe like a big shoe box, with a lid with holes in it. Good substrates are soil and sand mixes, snake bedding, or crab bedding. Keep an eye on the nesting box, because if she doesn't like it, she'll try to get out. You can leave her in the box for an hour or two each day, until she lays eggs.

Remember that gravid females can become egg bound, and will need to see a vet if they don't lay the eggs after a long time.

Females usually do not produce eggs until they are at least 2, and more commonly 3-4. It's a good idea to have a plan and a nesting box ready for them though. My female is 3 now, 8 inches, and she has yet to produce eggs.

scripta_elegans wrote:Females usually do not produce eggs until they are at least 2, and more commonly 3-4. It's a good idea to have a plan and a nesting box ready for them though. My female is 3 now, 8 inches, and she has yet to produce eggs.

Oh yeah, I knew there was something else I wanted to mention...

Yeah, like scripta said, they don't always produce eggs when they reach sexual maturity. They can have unfertilized eggs, but they sometimes only produce eggs once or twice during their whole lives. Sometimes never. There really isn't anything wrong with that, every female turtle is a little bit different about how many eggs they have. (Like how no two human women go through menopause at the same exact time).

dznyfan wrote:I just found out my slider was a female. I learned about "nesting" and about how a turtle lays the eggs, etc.

I read that I have to create a nesting area for my RES who is a little over one years old but already has a carapace length of 4 1/2 to 5 in! I am not sure if she is sexually mature yet.

Anyway, how do I go about creating a nesting area for my turtle in a 40 gal. tank? I read you use a mixture of sand and substrate or potting soil...

If anybody could please give some info or pictures It would be great! Thank you so much!

Females become sexually mature about the time they reach 6-7 inches in length, which can take up to 5-7 years.
So you still have LOTS of time...
I have 3 female RES that are over 4 years old and +/- 7" in length.Still no eggs.
You can build a suitable nesting area now if you want, because they are more likely to lay eggs in familiar environment than not.Otherwise they will lay in the water if they really have to.

jozzep wrote:

dznyfan wrote:I just found out my slider was a female. I learned about "nesting" and about how a turtle lays the eggs, etc.

I read that I have to create a nesting area for my RES who is a little over one years old but already has a carapace length of 4 1/2 to 5 in! I am not sure if she is sexually mature yet.

Anyway, how do I go about creating a nesting area for my turtle in a 40 gal. tank? I read you use a mixture of sand and substrate or potting soil...

If anybody could please give some info or pictures It would be great! Thank you so much!

Females become sexually mature about the time they reach 6-7 inches in length, which can take up to 5-7 years.
So you still have LOTS of time...
I have 3 female RES that are over 4 years old and +/- 7" in length.Still no eggs.
You can build a suitable nesting area now if you want, because they are more likely to lay eggs in familiar environment than not.Otherwise they will lay in the water if they really have to.

Can she really lays eggs in the water??? mine always tried to run away from her box I use beach sand for her nest

jozzep wrote:Females become sexually mature about the time they reach 6-7 inches in length, which can take up to 5-7 years.
So you still have LOTS of time...
I have 3 female RES that are over 4 years old and +/- 7" in length.Still no eggs.
You can build a suitable nesting area now if you want, because they are more likely to lay eggs in familiar environment than not.Otherwise they will lay in the water if they really have to.

Thats usually wild res. Most breeders say 2-3years there mature and at 4inches they can lay eggs. Seeing and reading about both i agree. Smallest res laying eggs I read about was slighty under 4inches at 3 years of age.

Also yep they can lay there eggs in the water. Both my painted and res did it.

Painteds4life wrote:

jozzep wrote:Females become sexually mature about the time they reach 6-7 inches in length, which can take up to 5-7 years.
So you still have LOTS of time...
I have 3 female RES that are over 4 years old and +/- 7" in length.Still no eggs.
You can build a suitable nesting area now if you want, because they are more likely to lay eggs in familiar environment than not.Otherwise they will lay in the water if they really have to.

Thats usually wild res. Most breeders say 2-3years there mature and at 4inches they can lay eggs. Seeing and reading about both i agree. Smallest res laying eggs I read about was slighty under 4inches at 3 years of age.

Also yep they can lay there eggs in the water. Both my painted and res did it.

Wow... I didn't know they could lay eggs in the water. Odd...

then I can start hoping Kame will do it in the water rather than turning into egg binding.

Just give more confirmation to dznyfan>> My kame is only 3 years old and she is 7 inches, she is showing the sympthom of being gravid

We have sliders at work (20ish I would guess mixed in with a few soft shells) and they lay eggs in the water all the time, I have spoke to our animal keepers and ask if we could get them a nesting box but of course "its not in the budget" and "Theres no where to put it out of customers view". Luckily it hasn't seemed to hurt any of the females yet, some of them have been there since the store opened. At least the rest of the habitat is good and they have proper lighting and diet!