finding my painted turt a mate. tips?

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M

mudskipper

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 16, 2006
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Hastings, NE
hey i want to breed my 4-5" painted turtle. i think it is a male, due to the fact that it has 2 bvery small bulges at the tail base. also cause he is crazy. bites everything puit your finger in front if the glass, he'll snap try to eat it until you move it out of the way. he is fun to hand feed, lol. quite a ball of energy.
so, should the female be the same aize or smnaller, wut can i do to help them along? water hight, water to land ratio, underwater caves, temp, food, substrate type/amount?
 
Pic?
 
In my experience with breeding painted turtles, the males can be aggressive and very horny! What size tank are you keeping them in? Can we see some pics of your male? The males are usually easy to tell apart because they have long front nails and longer tails then a female. Of course it's nice to compare the two sexes side by side. A male turtle can really stress out a female in an aquarium environment because she has no place to hide from her horny pursuer. It’s best to keep and breed them outdoors in a small pond. Do you know what subspecies of painted turtle you have? There are 4 subspecies of Chrysemys picta: Eastern, Southern, Midland, and Western.
 
In most native NA aquatic turtles, adult males have very long front claws. I believe the size difference between adult female and adult male painted turtles is negligible, but I could be wrong. If I am, females are probably a bit on the larger side.

If you want to breed them, there are turtle breeding tanks you can buy. They're deep plastic tubs with a water side and a slope that goes into the land side, which is more than deep enough for painted turtles to lay eggs. I don't know a whole lot about breeding turtles, but I guess you should keep the pair the same way you keep the lone male, just with more space. They might just mate on their own if you keep them together and make sure they're healthy.

And you'll probably have better luck waiting until spring.
 
i got a crapy broken camera. i will try thogh. right now he is in the bakeyard sunbathing. i dug a 1 foot deep pit that is 5'X5' i put in a dome made of dead weeds that naturaly weaved themselves together. he is having fun, has shade, shelter, sunlight, and loose dirt to dig in. i let him play outside for a half an hour when i have the time. the pit he was in, was going to be his pond, but it will start to get to cold to continue the work/use it.
 
i wish my pond was ready and it was spring lol. he lives in a 45G long/breeder style (at least i think it is a long. it is only a few inches shorter than my standard 55). from the websites i have checked it is a western, but midland is also a close bet. its undershell is a mach to the western, just with faded color, so i guess i will have upgrade a few of his care things
 
It's ok to keep them outdoors in a pond when the condtions are right and then bring them indoors in the winter. Thats what I did with my Midland and Eastern Painted Turtles. I also had a large custom made tank for them when I brought them indoors. If you build a deep enough pond you can leave them outdoors all year and they will hibernate if you give them some mud to bury into. My problem was that they were kept in a cement pond that was between 18-24 inches deep. Not good enough in my book for them to over winter in.
 
is my tank ok? also what should the male to female ratio be? i will probably have to go and get a wild one, because all my lfs has are like 30 1-2" RES hachlings, and and a baby yellow bely slider about the same size. they think its a painted. then 2 full grown RES in a 55 (parents i guess), and the other store has 7-9" adult res. thats it
 
The more floor space the better. I kept 6 painted turtles indoors in the winter in a custom made 4'x6'x18" tank. It was a little crowded for 6 adults but in was only for the winter. Normal store bought aquariums are not the best thing for aquatic turtles, luckily painted turtles don't get as big as sliders. You could make a small indoor pond or you could use a small kiddie pool to keep a pair in. Rubbermaid tubs work pretty good too. Just some ideas to throw at you.
 
kiddie pools and rubbermaids sounds like my house. my torts cruise the yard by day n rubbermaid by night as they are hatchlings n my westerns live in a kiddie pool in my yard by dayn a 55gal at night cause the kiddie pool isnt protected from cats at night
 
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