How to keep a turtle

Size as you like, small turtles are not good to keep, and big turtles are not too pro to keep. This is what I thought. It's best to buy between April and September every year. If you want to buy two, don't buy one with too much difference in size. Brazilian turtles are very fierce and will eat the small. It is better to buy a boy and a girl, as they may have baby turtles in the future. Carefully observe the appearance of the turtle for any abnormalities, the shell should be smooth and hard, with beautiful patterns. The skin should be smooth and hard, with beautiful patterns. The skin should not be peeled off, and there should be no pox-like wounds. Nails are full, limbs are unharmed, eyes are bright and unharmed, no mucus at the corners of the mouth, and nostrils are clean and circulating. Crawls fast and straight, strong limbs. Lively and grabbing for food. Finally, it should be placed in the water to see if it swims beautifully. It should be able to float up to the surface and breathe on its own. That's about it. I will add more later when I think of it.

2, distinguish male turtles female turtles:

Male turtles have longer nails on the front paws, thicker and longer tails, the cloaca is farther away from the body, and the ventral armor is slightly concave inward. The opposite is true for female turtles.

Of course this can only be seen by comparing a female turtle about the same size as the male.

3. Turtle tanks:

The more natural the tank, the better. If you buy a big tank, you don't have to change it all the time, and the turtles feel free to move around. The wall of the tank is a little higher to prevent it from climbing out. There is water and land. The depth of the water is 3 times the thickness of the turtle's shell. Under the water, you can put sand and rainwater stones, and plant a few water plants. Raise a few small fish. Get another land. If you buy a turtle tank, there will be stairs and land. If you have an ordinary aquarium, put a big stone. Put it in a place where the sun can shine. This is one of the easiest ways to place it. If you have the condition, you can buy a UV lamp and put it 30 centimeters away from the turtle tank and give it 15-20 minutes of sunlight every day. When the temperature is cold, buy a heating rod, the temperature of 25 degrees is appropriate.

4, water quality:

If you are diligent, it is best to change the water every day, the sand should also be cleaned. If you are lazy, buy a filtration system. Even then it should be changed once a week. Frequent water change is very important for turtles. Add a little salt to the newly changed water. It must not be too cold. Otherwise they will get a lot of diseases.

4, food:

Turtles are omnivorous animals, young is love to eat meat. You can feed small fish, shrimp, pig liver, red worms, cockroaches and so on. Turtles generally eat in the water. Turtles love to eat veggies when they get older. They will nibble water plants. You can feed some washed vegetables. If you are too lazy to mess with those things, buy a box of turtle food and eat it slowly. Good quality turtle food is rich in calcium, protein, fiber, fat, vitamins A, B12, C, D3, E. Nutritious, but not too tasty. The turtles must think so too. Tortoises are not very good at digesting food. If the turtle is too small to feed too big shrimp, etc., you can help it chopped. Fish out the leftovers when they are finished.

5, sunbathing:

When it is warm, you can put it in the sun for about 15 minutes. Be careful not to expose it to the sun! Ninety o'clock in the morning and three or four o'clock in the afternoon the sun is best. Frequent sunshine can replenish calcium, but also can kill the bacteria in the cracks of its shell.

6, safety:

If you have a dog or cat at home, add a wire mesh to the turtle tank. Many turtles have died under the claws and teeth of cats and dogs. Turtle tank to be high enough that they can not climb out. Note that stepping on the rocks in the tank on land also can not climb out. Take care to give them a bath every day when you are raising them. Prevent drought death. Be careful not to let them fall down when they climb to high places. Especially if you keep turtles on the balcony, don't let them climb out and fall downstairs! It is very dangerous!

7, hibernation:

Hibernation is very important for turtles. The temperature is lower than 12 degrees or so they begin to hibernate. In the north is about the end of October to March of the next year. Newborn turtles are best not to hibernate in the first year, and weak and sick turtles are best not to hibernate.

①, fattening and clearing the stomach and intestines: start to give them nutritional supplements in September, fattening. About two weeks before hibernation start to stop feeding, the last three or four days to soak in warm water defecation, empty intestinal tract. The above is very necessary, otherwise food left in the intestines will ferment causing their stomach wall intestines to rupture and they will die.

②, hibernation box arrangement: use a large plastic storage box, put a thick soil. They will burrow in on their own. Put aside a few days to the soil spray some water to keep moist. 10 - 13 degrees is the best hibernation temperature. Don't put them in the open air, they will freeze to death if they are below 8 degrees. The best place to put them is in the corner of the balcony. Let the temperature drop slowly, don't let them feel the cold all of a sudden.

3. Observe them at any time. Don't forget about them! When the day warms up, take the turtles out and put them back to their original place, don't feed them food for three days. The fourth and fifth days and then start feeding. They must have lost weight. Give them more food and make up for it. Recover as soon as possible. Successful hibernation of turtles to give birth to babies.

8, do not hibernate:

Young turtles, weak body and hibernation during the buy back the turtle do not let them hibernate. Because they don't do the gut-cleaning work before hibernation.

①, water breeding plus cross temperature bar is a must. around 25 degrees.

②, if the room temperature is about 25 degrees can be dry. But you need to take a warm bath every day. Give them food during the bath.

③, winter food is best fresh lean shredded meat or small fish and shrimp. This is good to keep the strength.

II. Diseases

1. White eye disease

①. Symptoms and causes: eyes can not be opened, cornea and around the cornea of the cornea of the cornea and the vesicles, there is a layer of white film. Water pollution caused. Often used to rub the eyes of the forelimbs, can not ingest food, in severe cases of double blindness, breathing difficulties, body thin and die.

②, medical treatment: take the turtle out of the water, placed in a dark place, so that the membranous out of its eyes, you can feed it some animal liver. Use chloramphenicol or other anti-inflammatory eye drops to dot the eyes, one to two times a day, or use penicillin agent to 45,000 units per kilogram of turtle body weight to feed one to two times; or use a cotton swab or a new quill tip dipped in 1% furacilin or 1% raffinur aqueous solution, coated with the eyes twice a day, and then put it into the water. Basically six days can be cured.

2, rotting skin disease

①, symptoms and causes: the affected part of the ulceration, epidermis white. The water quality is polluted.

②, medical treatment: wound cleaned up, and then on the gentamycin ophthalmic ointment

3, calcium deficiency

①, symptoms and causes: shell soft, deformation.

②, medical: sunshine. Eat fish and shrimp.

4. Pneumonia

①. Symptoms and causes: mucus in the corners of the mouth and nose, turtle drowsiness, head held high, front and back legs weak, nose and mouth will gasp. Related to temperature change

②, medical treatment: isolation, raise the temperature in the rearing box to about 30 degrees. Mix gentamicin into water at 1:20 ratio. The most important thing is to feed the medicine, will amoxicillin and twenty-one gold Vitamins it (a little) crushed, with a raw egg (a little) and well, while the little turtle stretched his head, with the thumb and forefinger gently clamped on both sides of the head, with the end of the larger needle will be cocked the mouth open, with a syringe of the medicine and egg mixture drops. One or two drops at a time, about ten drops each time, twice a day.

5, rotten nail disease

①, symptoms and causes: the surface of the carapace ulcerated, serious cases form burrows or see muscle, hunger or less food

②, medical treatment: sick turtles out of the monoculture, and then the sick turtles of the rotted place to remove, with hydrogen peroxide scrub the affected area, and then use permanganate methyl crystalline powder directly coated, or other anti-inflammatory drugs coated with the affected area. You can also use panax pseudoginseng powder or fresh panax pseudoginseng to apply to the affected area of the sick turtle.

6, gastroenteritis

①, Symptoms: the sick turtles eyes dull, colorless, body thin, do not like to crawl, like to drink water, diarrhea, feces in the form of snot

②, prevention and treatment methods: to improve the water quality, keep the water fresh, feed fresh feed, eating utensils strictly disinfected. Sick turtles with 300,000 units of erythromycin solution soaked for 60 minutes, in the feed mixed into the appropriate amount of hygromycin feeding sick turtles. Mildly sick turtles can take dysentery, flavin, chloramphenicol and so on. For the serious ones to take intramuscular injection treatment, while supplementing vitamins.

7, septicemia

①, symptoms and causes: weakness, weakness, limbs or abdominal nails with red spots

②, medical treatment: before treatment to the veterinarian's blood test, followed by an injection of antibiotics

8, cold

①, symptoms and causes: a runny nose, the water temperature is not fixed, catching cold.

②, medical treatment: add warmth, feed some amoxicillin

9, lung choking

①, symptoms and causes: neck hypertrophy and swelling, limb weakness, no ability to stretch; the skin is yellowish, like a blister. If choking for a long time, after fishing on the visible open mouth action.

②, medical: immediately squeeze the limbs into the shell to squeeze out the water in the body, and then pull the head and limbs for stretching pressure action by artificial respiration, and then put the turtle in a quiet warm place. Reduce the amount of water. Don't put the turtle in the tank when changing water, and suddenly choke on the water.

Notice before keeping:

Many people have the experience of keeping tortoises, but more than half of them either die or give them away or release them, which is not good for the environment and the tortoises, so I hope that you will think twice before you buy a tortoise and keep it at home. I hope you will think twice before you buy a tortoise, so that you don't jeopardize the tortoise and the businessman's pocket.

1. Measure your financial ability (turtle + equipment + feed + medicine).

2. Ask yourself how much you know about the turtle you want to keep (habits, whether it is a conservation animal).

3. Do you have enough space (you need to calculate the size of the turtle when it grows to its maximum size).

4. Whether you have the heart and patience to raise them.

5. It's best to find an expert (at least) as a consultant.

How to buy:

If you decide to buy one or more Brazilian tortoises, the following characteristics should help you to buy a red tortoise or other varieties of colored tortoises:

One, observe the tortoise you want to buy carefully! Does it show any natural movement of avoidance (as long as there is room in the pot for avoidance)? Does it try to dive to escape when a person approaches the pot? Turtles that have difficulty swimming or diving, have clogged nostrils, or have swollen, dilated eyes are at the end of their lives and should not be purchased.

Second, most healthy turtles have uninjured shells, which means that the shells are uniformly shaped and normal, with no missing links. If the shell is "soft" to the touch, it is suffering from chondromalacia. This defect can be salvaged to a limited extent, but it is a lifelong condition of having a disproportionate carapace.

Third, ask the turtle seller to feed the turtles, and watch which one or how many turtles are the first to eat, this can also determine their health. You should be careful with tortoises that refuse to eat the feed, because they are either sick or have not yet adapted to the new feed.

Four, if you still like the turtles you see, you should also consider that these cute little guys will not be little guys forever, and in the future they will need more space. If conditions are favorable, they will grow very quickly, and under your care, the carapace length will grow to twenty-five or thirty centimeters! A growing pair of red tortoises will need about 100 liters of water to swim in, and they don't look so green and cute when they grow up. However, for those who love tortoises, they will always be cute. A deficiency of calcium and vitamins can cause "rickets", which is a condition in which you can press your finger on the back of the turtle's armor, causing a small indentation. This is called "rickets".

Maintaining water quality:

While Brazilian turtles are the easiest and least fussy aquarium animals to keep, there is one drawback: they excrete too quickly, and because of the high temperatures, the leftover feed tends to rot, so the water is always smelly. Only two days after the water change, and then become a pool of muddy soup, even the Brazilian turtles are almost invisible, this is because of the single-celled algae reproduction, the water has enough nutrients, the temperature is suitable, green algae breeding extremely fast.

Several experiments have been conducted to try to keep the water clear with chemicals, but the results have not been satisfactory. The use of CHlNOSOL (one gram to 30 liters of water) kept the water clear and odorless for a week, but the debris and rotting feces stirred up by the turtles made the water even dirtier. Brazilian turtles live in this water quality for a long time, whether harmful coliform bacteria has not yet been determined, and there is no certainty that this water with chemicals have injured the internal organs of animals, so it is best not to use chemicals.

The easiest way is to change the water completely. Drain, pump and dump the old dirty water four hours after feeding. Then scrub the walls and bottom of the container with a medium-hard brush and water. To clean the container, place the turtle in a plastic tub or on land at the edge of the pool - where it can't run away, of course. Fill it with fresh water at the right temperature and then return the turtle to the water.

Some species of bog or aquatic turtles are not as comfortable with a complete water change, but the Brazilian tortoise will soon become accustomed to the practice and the disruption it causes. There is still a disadvantage of changing the water completely, it will induce the turtles to excrete feces in their intestines faster and make the water dirty again, so it is better to check the tank (pool) soon after the water change to remove the feces.

Lighting needs:

Many turtles need to bask in the sun, like the Brazilian tortoises released in some pools are often seen stretching out their heads, feet and limbs under the scorching sun, eyes closed in a relaxed manner. Sunbathing kills bacteria on the shell, prevents the shell from becoming brittle, and provides warmth. These functions require ultraviolet rays, which are very important to turtles. Therefore, when you want your turtle to enjoy the warm sunshine, don't just let it stay in the water and try not to let it bask in the sun through the glass, because the UV green can be easily blocked. If you are afraid of letting it dry too long and forget to take it back, you can set up a half-water place so that it can be fully exposed to the sunlight or soaked in the water. It is best to let it sunbathe for one hour to two hours daily, and regularly brush the turtle's back with a soft toothbrush to remove parasites.

Hatching:

Hatchlings can be kept without difficulty in a flat-bottomed container, such as a plastic pot, a plastic tank or box, or an aquarium, and the water should not be too deep. A commercially available flat, shallow plastic tank with an island and a plastic coconut tree in the center is the least suitable because (1) it is too small. (2) It's impossible to add an electric heater. (3) Misleading users to use the island as a feeding place. Because Brazilian turtles feed exclusively in the water, the result may be that the island is stacked with feed while the turtles are starving.

There are some specific minimum requirements for an ideal breeding site. Each hatchling should have five liters of water to move around in, and the water should be no deeper than the length of the turtle, so that it can breathe at the surface with its feet on the ground. It is also important to make an island for them out of bricks and stones, floating islands are not suitable, as the hatchlings often fail to climb up them and the effort is wasted. On the other hand, be careful that the island and decorations don't become dangerous obstacles that could snag the hatchlings and cause them to drown.

The water temperature that the hatchlings can adapt to is about 25 degrees Celsius; when it's cold, the air above the container should also be warmed, and adding a cover light to the tank can help. If the water temperature is still too low, add electric heaters to the water - adjustable if possible. If you buy a higher-energy (100 to 150 watt) heater now, it will be enough for a larger tank when the turtles are bigger. Heaters sold at aquarium stores should be placed under the surface of the water, and care should be taken to ensure that the heater and power cord do not snag the turtle.

It is especially important that the turtles have direct access to sunlight, so place the tank on a balcony or window sill, and if that is not possible, give the hatchlings ultraviolet light once or twice a week for three to five minutes each time. The UV light should not be too close to the tortoises, so as not to harm them with too much light. Sunlight is best, but care should be taken to ensure that the glass of the container used does not filter out the necessary UV light. The hatchlings can be kept on a balcony throughout the summer. To prevent birds from picking them up, you can cover the box with a net. It is absolutely necessary to prevent the tortoises from climbing out of the breeding box, or else you may find the wiring of the heater under the bed or in a corner, or even a bridge for the tortoises to escape, because the tortoises are very skillful at crawling.

If algae (moss) grows on the tank, it's fine, but the water in the tank should not stink. The important thing is to change the water regularly, otherwise, due to the high temperature and the feces and leftover feed in the water, the hatchlings will be living in a puddle of stinky water, which will promote the growth of germs, so the water should be changed at least once a week.