How long are musk turtles pregnant for

I recommend using your pointer fingers, as you can see in the picture below. If your turtle is pregnant, you should be able to feel the eggs on both sides. All you should do is just rest your fingers inside the shell. If your turtle has eggs, the eggs will naturally press up against your fingers. It is really helpful if you also have a male turtle you can test this technique on. Incubating turtle eggs refers to creating a favorable environment for the embryo in turtle eggs to develop.

This primarily means regulating the temperature and making sure the eggs are nut moved around a lot. In order to incubate turtle eggs, you should purchase a turtle egg incubator.

You can buy this one on amazon. In order to incubate turtle eggs, you first want to transfer the eggs to the incubator. You want to make sure that you keep the eggs right side up, as turning the eggs upside down can damage the embryo. The ideal temperature to incubate turtle eggs is around 87 degrees fahrenheight.

You should set that as your target temperature on your incubator. While the number of eggs usually varies by breed, almost all turtle eggs take around 2 months to hatch. This is referred to as the incubation period.

Please see the story below…. I also saw that we need to warm the area and will look into getting the type of incandescent bulb you recommended. Thank you in advance for your help. Our turtles are important top us and we want to make sure we are doing everything we can to keep her healthy and comfortable.

One of our other questions is, if she does lay the eggs, do we need to incubate them? Oh what I surprise!!!! We thought both of our turtles were males, but apparently one is female. She has been acting strangely and constantly swimming, splashing, trying to climb the glass of our tank. It has been driving us nuts. We thought it was stress or behavioral because we had changed some things in the environment due to filter issues, etc. However, very early this morning she was making all kinds of noise so I got up to check on her and she was up on their platform in the sand, digging and digging and pushing the sand into a corner.

I got on the internet and lo and behold the behaviors she was displaying can be attributed to being gravid and needing to lay her eggs!!!!! Sure enough I felt behind her hind flippers and there are two or three hard lumps I can feel.

I have no idea what to do!!!!!!! If you have any experience with this, please give us some advice. This is very exciting but I need to do some research. I have no idea how long she has been trying to lay her eggs or how much longer it will be, the vet said it is difficult to determine but as long as she is eating and active we should be OK. We also need to find a new environment and quick.

I guess we may spend the weekend building the pond we have been thinking about. If none are convenient, ask for a reference to a nearby practice that treats reptiles the specialty is rather small, so vets often know one another. Hi Lori, Thanks for your interest. Nesting site needs vary among the species…please let me know what kind of turtle you have.

However, it would be rare for any to be able to nest on the platform you describe. A fatal infection egg yolk peritonitis will invariable develop if she does soon. A radiograph will reveal the number of eggs and their relative condition, and so is the vest way to determine if intervention is needed. Oxytosin injections are very effective and usually cause the female to deposit the eggs quickly.

Please let me know if you need assistance in locating a vet with experience in this area. You will need to incubate the eggs if you wish them to hatch; details re set-up, temperature and such vary as well, so please let me know the species involved.

Hi, Thank you, our turtle is an approx. This will be the first she lays eggs, we have had our turtles since they were very young. I did comtact a hepavet in our area, he stated to watch for lethargy and not eating or any other change in overall health. He did say to call him next week to follow up and see if there are any changes. Can you educate us specifically on why she will likely not nest on the platform?

What would be your suggestion for a quick habitat we could create inexpensively? We live in Florida so it is too hot outside to just place a kiddie pool and nesting area, we would need to build shade and fencing and covering to keep out raccoons, snakes, etc. We did add inches of sand to the platform for now, she seems to have calmed down a little but climbs up there and then leaves again right away. I am just concerned about her health at this point, I do not want her to get an infection or retain her eggs.

The vet was unable to give us a time frame and said an examination would not necessarily tell us when she is due to lay her eggs. I have no idea, but there are definite ping-pong size bulges behind her hind flippers, they seem to be quite pronounced. It was noticeable right away when I picked her up and looked, I did not have to even feel them to know.

Hi, The eggs are ready to be deposited if you can feel them; nest-seeking behavior only occurs at this time as well. Our vets Bx Zoo generally administered Oxytosin after radiograph, just to be sure nothing else was going on when the female rejected suitable to us!

Some use artificial sites right away, others drop eggs anywhere in captivity. Try a large plastic storage bin with 8 inches or so of moist soil mixed with sand or peat. A lamp with a wt bulb in one corner may be useful.

Confine her for a day or so…most will lay within that time, if they are going to. After that, I would suggest contacting a vet. Our turtle still had not laid any eggs this week so last night we took into the vet. X rays confirmed she has 4 eggs and is ready to lay them. She has rejected both areas we have inside for her we had built another one in a large plastic bin following your intructions and confined her for 2 days so we are now building an outdoor pond with a nesting area.

If she does not lay in the next 3 weeks we plan to induce her and hopefully then she will lay the eggs. Thank you again for your help and guidance. This is most definately a surprise and a new area of learning for us. Coarse grade vermiculite is the best substrate to use; I can go over the details when you are ready if you wish.

Finally have an update on our RES turtles. We were doing our best to build an outdoor pond habitat so that Penelope could lay her eggs, but we had a few challenges and it was taking too long. So, this weekend we dug a much smaller area and fenced it in and moved all of her nesting sand mixture out there for her. We will see how both turtles do, we wanted to keep them together so her mate is out with her.

Thanks for the update and hope all goes well. These behaviors become modified in captivity, but his presence now may inhibit egg-laying.

Thank you, I was wondering whether or not we should remove him. She still has not laid her eggs. I will try letting her be out there by herself. We contacted the vet again today to give him an update and we may induce her on Tuesday if she still has not laid the eggs. Penelope has still not laid her eggs. We have been giving her calcium the past two weeks via injection at the vet and daily in her food. The vet does not yet recommend inducing her. Another challenge is that her temporary outdoor habitat we are still working on building the permanent pond habitat has been a challenge to keep as clean as we would like and the water quality is not as good as in our indoor aquarium.

We have had daily torrential rains as well which is not helping. The rains are expected to continue for about another week. We are concerned because she has started to develop small brown spots one one of her flippers and in her face and throat area. They are superficial but the vet said it could be a sign of infection. I will email you a picture today if we can get one. The timing of oxytosin injections is well-established, so I think relying upon x-rays is the way to go.

Calcium may help to improve muscle contraction strength, and therefore ability to move the eggs along. Betadine, Acriflavine best in my experience and various over-the-counter human fungal treatments can be used on skin fungus, if that is what is present.

Photo would not likely be useful, unfortunately.. Acriflavine in water, at fish strength, can do no harm; some vets advise salt, but need to determine if fungal, bacterial or other. Is the turtle basking and drying off completely in the outdoor enclosure? We live in Florida and are wondering whether or not we need to install a heater in our outdoor pond for the winter.

The lowest water temp. The two turtles are adult RES, approx. One is a gravid female. Both are healthy. The turtles were introduced to their pond habitat in early August so they have had some time to adjust. Our pond is apprx. If we do need a heater, which type is recommended? Also, should we reduce feeding in the winter months?

We currently feed them every other day and they get a varied diet of fresh veggies, occasional fruit, and high-quality pellets. Florida can be tricky; 2 years ago, there were major die-offs of reptiles, even in the south, during the unusually cold winter. Sliders overwinter successfully here in NY, and points north, but there are risks involved.

At 60 F, they tend to stay fairly active, may bask on nice days, and will eat sporadically. Normally when the eggs are hard enough, they should slightly press against the shell. When you feel one of these bumps you can gently press on that spot and see if the egg moves.

If there is an egg you should feel that the egg will slightly push back after you pressed. So a better way to find out if your turtle is pregnant is to look at changes in her behavior. In general all changes in behavior mean that something is happening to your turtle. If you have a female turtle those changes usually mean that she is pregnant. There are quite a few behavioral changes that occur when a turtle is pregnant. Here are the most common ones. When a turtle is pregnant the amount of foods that she eats will drastically change.

There are a few turtles that like to overeat in a situation like this. While overeating is not the most common response of a turtle when she is pregnant, it can still happen, after all every turtle is different from the rest, and they all have a different personality.

A pregnant turtle will try to dig a lot. If your turtle is pregnant you might find her trying to dig in the substrate of the tank, or in the basking area. This is also something that they do trying to find a good nesting site. The basking habits of a pregnant turtle will also change. When a turtle is pregnant she will change her baking habits, she might end up not basking for days because she is trying to find a suitable place to lay the eggs. A pregnant turtle will try to get out of the tank.

When a turtle is pregnant she will do everything that she can to get out of the tank. She will try to dig holes, she will try to climb over, she will try to swim through the glass, everything that can be done she will do it.

So if you turtle is showing all of those signs then you should try to feel the carapace, or even better go to the vet and let him check. And if your turtle is truly pregnant then you still have work to do. At this point you basically have two options, and they all depend on your location and what season it is.

After you are sure that your turtle has no way to escape you can take her outside and let her find a good spot in the yard to lay her eggs. If you want to help her find a place to lay her eggs faster than you should wet the ground before you let her out.

Turtles usually choose to lay their eggs in places with wet earth. For the bulbs to use in the tank it is recommended that you use UVB bulbs of very high quality. You can purchase these in pet shops that specialize in reptile pet supplies. Turtles rely on light to help them metabolize calcium so that they cannot suffer vitamin A or vitamin D3 scarcity. You will also have to install a submersible heater that will be used to heat the water temperature.

Basically the ideal water temperature should be controlled to be between 72 and 78 degrees Celsius. As for the substrate with turtles it is not a requirement but if you prefer to have your tank fitted with substrate using mid-sized gravel can just do the work for you.

The turtle eats a variety of small animals when it is in the wild and some of the small animals include; small snails, crayfish, and mollusks. It also feeds on other small aquatic insects such as damselfly nymphs, and dragon fly. The turtle is also known to chase small tadpole including terrestrial insects that fall into water.

In captivity it can be fed pellet turtle food, cricket, bloodworms , fish that have been cut up, and shrimp. The female Musk Turtle is known to be able to lay between two and eight eggs when the environment is a little bit warmer. They prefer to lay their eggs in logs of tree found in the water in the wild.