I will say when it comes to box turtle eggs, they seem to be a
little bit more delicate. You know, they've got softer
shells. In my opinion, a tortoise, if
you get a little too wet, it'll be OK.
If you get a little too dry, it tends to be OK.
Box turtles, if you get them a little wet or you get them a
little dry, they'll either shrivel up while they're mold
over. So kind of have to find that
sweet spot. I'm Wendy Montroy and this is
Turtle Tea with TTPG. Thank you Cameron Lamb for
joining me again. Today we're going to talk about
breeding 3 toed box turtles and we'll go over everything you
need to know from egg laying to hatchling care.
In our last episode, we covered their care and husbandry.
To start off, do you think this species needs to be bred, born
captivity or are they kind of overly abundant?
What's what's your thoughts on that?
I, I think they need to be produced heavily just about all
species of, of turtles and tortoises.
I could, I could say the same, but these guys specifically,
they, they, they're under a lot of pressure.
So I I think so. OK good to know.
When are they mature enough to lay eggs?
Is it age based or size based? I think it's a little bit of
both. I would say size probably is
more important. Typically 3 1/2 to 5 maybe even
six years is is about the time frame it takes for you to get a
juvenile to small adult sized box turtle.
After that you know they they produce pretty regularly.
After that bigger females will definitely lay more more eggs
and more often. But I think that five to
seven-year time frame is is pretty important for just the
growth of the M1 to get to proper size.
OK. And you, how's your animals in
groups, right? Are you keeping them separate
until a certain age or are they kind of coming up in groups and
growing up? I, I try to raise them in groups
of, you know, two or three hold backs.
For example, I've got a couple box turtles.
Once the weather warms up, I'll be, I'll be moving them outside
just to, to, to give them companionship of some sort.
They probably don't need it, but I, I enjoy raising a couple of
them up at a time together. I feel like they'll, they learn
a lot from each other. They, they're a little bit more
keen to want to eat food items that you make available to them.
They see each other eating and they're like, hey, that looks
pretty good. I think I want some of that.
So I prefer to raise them in small individual groups.
And then as they get older, I, I introduced them to my adult
breeding colony, you know, 10 to 13 animals.
OK so how many eggs do you usually get per clutch and do
they multi clutch? So you typically can get 2
clutches a year. I've heard of some getting 3.
From the small size you might only get one or two eggs.
On the larger size you can probably get 5-6, maybe even
seven eggs. 3 to 5 is about average.
I typically don't see too many more than that or too many less
than that. So that's twice a year.
So one female can give you anywhere from 6 to 10 babies a
year. Wow.
Can you describe how you set them up for incubation?
Yes, I I don't really do anything different as far as
incubation than I do for all of my turtles and tortoises.
I damped for Mickey Light in a small deli container that I
throw into the incubator for roughly 70 days.
I will say when it comes to boxed turtle eggs, they seem to
be a little bit more delicate. You know, they've got softer
shells. In my opinion, a tortoise, if
you get a little too wet, it'll be OK.
If you get a little too dry, it tends to be OK.
Box turtles, if you get them a little wet or you get them a
little dry, they'll either shrivel up while they're mold
over. So kind of have to find that
sweet spot. Sometimes it takes adjusting the
container a little bit, letting it out, letting it dry out.
Sometimes halfway through any incubation you might need to add
a little bit more water. If you keep an eye on your eggs,
they'll kind of tell you what they're they're doing, you know,
See an egg start to split or grow droplets of water on it.
It's generally not a good sign, especially if it's early on in
incubation. Are you looking for a target
humidity or are you just kind of eyeball and and going from that?
Honestly, I just eyeball it. I don't, I don't get very
detailed in the, in the number of humidity or the, the I'm like
the word, the, the amount of humidity.
It's not something I typically measure.
Just kind of look at the eyes, I look at the eggs and let them
tell you what they're thinking. OK, are they temperature sex
dependent? Yeah, most of your, your box
turtles are going to be temperature, temperature sex
determined. And on the lower end you're
going to get males, you know, 82 to 84 probably going to give you
males. If you incubate more, more than
that, 85 to 88, you're probably going to get females.
Somewhere in between is going to be 8586 or so.
Yeah, pretty pretty standard as far as box turtles as a whole.
OK. And you know right when they
hatch, do you leave them in the incubator for a while?
Yeah. So I will typically leave them
in there sometimes for the rest of the eggs that start hatching
out. Sometimes if one's popping out
early, I'll, I'll pull him out just so he doesn't trample on
the other eggs and start moving things around.
But they're usually pretty good about, you know, taking the time
hatching out and kind of sitting in the corner of the container.
You just want to make sure you you don't let them come out too
early. Sometimes if you give them a
spike in humidity or a spike in temperature towards the end of
the incubation, sometimes they'll want to hatch a little
premature and you'll get babies with large yolk SAC attached.
And then you have to do a little bit more special care when that
takes place. But for the most part, I'll
leave them in the containers for a couple days after the Hatch.
Just make sure that yolk fully absorbs.
They're walking around, they're moving around, doing what
they're supposed to do. And what does your setup look
like when they come out of the incubator?
So the first thing that I'll do is I'll put them in shallow
water. I know that the process the
hatches is not easy on any animal.
And do you typically come out thirsty?
Do you want to do you want to get hydrated again?
So also come in a little water, shallow water for you know, 1520
minutes or so. After that, I will typically put
them on moist paper towels. I can usually leave them there
for about a week, maybe even longer, and then they'll get
moves to their final enclosure. OK.
Do you have basking light UV for the little guys too or?
I give them UVI don't give them a basking bulb just because the
they don't really use it seeing they don't like bright lights,
especially as babies. They don't really like to sit on
their basketball. They don't, at least in my
opinion. I've I've never seen them really
utilize a basketball. And because they're so small,
they dehydrate easy. I'm always worried about just
overheating them. So I, I, I really try not to put
any, any hot bulbs over the enclosure.
My my room stays hot enough. The reptile room that I keep
them in, it's it's in the 80s all the time anyway so I'm not
I'm not overly worried about heat.
And do you keep them in groups as they're growing up?
Yeah, I typically like to raise babies and especially new babies
and then small groups. I think they do better.
They bounce the kind of bounce of ideas back opposite of each
other. You know, they learn from each
other. They see how they're moving,
seeing how they're they interact, especially when it
comes to food. You see one see something that
they want to eat and then all of a sudden all of them want to eat
that same pre item. So I think it helps for them to
kind of learn from each other as they grow.
So are they pretty readily into food when they're little, or do
you have to start them with something special?
It takes some, I would say for babies, it takes them a little
while to really develop an appetite or the food items that
I want to feed them. If I were to give them shop
worms or isopods, small crickets, you know, they would
eat those all day long no problem.
They're they're very visual on that aspect.
They like to see small Gray items moving around and they you
typically go for those right away.
I'm a little bit more not lazy, but I like to do things a little
bit more streamlined where I can offer pellets, pelleted food
items. They're just easier, especially
when you have a lot of animals. So if I can get them on a
pelleted diet, that typically is easier for me in the long run.
I know reptamine pellets get a pretty bad Rep is not being the
most nutritional pellet, but I've never found a baby turtle
to refuse them. So I'll usually get them started
on the Reptamine and I'll start adding other brands such as
Zoomed, Aqua Max, Hikhari. But once you get them on
pellets, they're they'll they'll eat anything.
You know, they'll go back to food items like worms and
crickets and then they'll go right back to the the pellets no
problem. So that's typically how I start
them off on food. So do you start them with the
pellets rather than live food? I don't know if offering them
live would make them less likely to take pellets.
I, it just depends. Sometimes I'll offer the pellets
right away and, and kind of hope that that takes, but not all of
them will jump on them right away.
Sometimes I'll put them in shallow water and I'll, I'll
just kind of slowly move the pellets around with, you know,
some forceps or even using like an aerator just just to give the
pellets a little bit of a movement and encourages them to
want to eat them a little bit more readily.
OK. And you said you moved to adult
setups outside around age 3 when they put some size on them.
Yeah, typically once they get around 3 years old, 2 1/2
sometimes, but I think size is more important.
Typically around 3 inches, 3 1/2 inches then then I feel pretty
confident that I can put them outside, you know, a lot.
There's a lot of things that would love to eat small box
turtles. Luckily where I live I don't
have a whole lot of predators, but as a precaution I just want
them to be big enough to where they can't easily be picked up
and taken off. And you don't want to put a
small small turtle in an adult's enclosure because and it can get
bullied. Or you know, big big male might
even eat a small box turtle as a as a tasty little snack.
Yeah, when they're little, like you have to worry about like
crows flying away with them because they're that small, so.
Yeah, Oh yeah, you wouldn't even know.
Like they just pop in real quick, take one and box turtle
flying in the air. We've had juvenile Hawks come
and I are fully grown Greek tortoise males, so he couldn't
take him, but he was like, you know, it's moving.
We were like, get out of here. I've seen photos of Bobcats with
small turtles in their mouth or coyotes with small turtles in
the mouth. Luckily I have a lot of big dogs
that. Oh, that helps.
Yeah, they keep away most of the predators.
That's good. So if someone wants to start
breeding the species, where do they start?
Pick up a group of hatchlings, like what's available out there.
In, in my opinion, and if you're, you're not in a rush, I
think you should start with hatchlings.
I think you should go through that tough phase of a turtle's
life and I think it's going to better prepare you for the
future. And if you can take care of a
baby box turtle and raise it to an adult size, then you can
hatch them out and then take care of those offspring.
Because you know how if you start with adult animals and you
decide to wing it with getting some babies that you have no
idea how to take care of, I think you're just doing a
disservice to the the animal. I think it's better to start and
then get through the hard part of its life and really learn the
the history, the Natural History of the animal and and make sure
you understand how to take care of it probably from the
beginning. That makes sense because then
you kind of learn all the nuances of the species by the
time you have babies and you're better prepared.
Yeah, I, I can't tell you how many people I've I've talked to
who have hatched babies year after year and they just can't
keep them alive. I was thinking like, well, if,
if you know, if you knew how to do it from the beginning, you
wouldn't have this issue. I for example, there's somebody
here locally who probably hatched 25 or 30 babies this
year and and not a single one survived because they just
wasn't confident on how to raise them so.
Yeah, and it. Takes a little time and energy
and to really learn how to raise them up, but in the beginning
you know how and what to expect. And you're looking at probably,
you know, it's not too long. It's what, like maybe five years
before you have babies of your own?
Yeah, And you can confidently be proud of the animal that you
raised from a little hatchling. You know, it's, it's
personality. You know what it likes, what it
doesn't like. If it's, if it's doing something
weird that may be a sign of illness, you, you're probably
going to pick it up right away. You know, if you start with
adult animals and you just assume that's how they ACT, you
might at least had animals because you didn't know.
I always encourage people to start from the beginning.
Yeah, definitely. I mean, we had that come up this
week with we have an adult Redfoot that we got as an adult
and she's just so much different than the babies that we have.
Like, you know, she had a medical issue and we found it
pretty quick. But had it been one of the
babies that like I know them inside out and all their
personality quirks, I would have known like that like, oh, hey,
you're, you're not doing your normal routine.
Like let's see what's up with you.
So I think that's really, really good advice.
All right. So if you do want to breed, is
there a demand for babies of the species?
Like are you going to have a hard time moving them or what's
the what's the status there? I have never had trouble selling
offspring. Everybody loves a small, cute
box turtle. The benefit to the box turtles?
You don't need a real expensive fish tank that's going to get
nasty full of nasty water that you're overfeeding.
You know, the, besides the things that we mentioned
earlier, as long as you take some time into, into
consideration in their care, they make great pets for those
willing to put in the time and effort.
So with that being said, I, I, I think they're really easy to
find homes for. They just require a little bit
more education. As far as like the taking care
of the little babies? Exactly, but I think they make a
lot better pet than a redhead slider so they're.
Usually. Really.
Easy to find homes for. If someone is going to keep them
inside completely, like maybe their climate doesn't allow it
or only allows them to be outside part of the year, what
do you recommend for like an indoor setup?
For like a single box turtle, I would probably suggest a like a
2 by 4 enclosure. You can you can probably use
like a tortoise table style of enclosure.
You know, box turtles do appreciate a little bit of room.
They're very active animals. If, if you don't give them
enough room, then they're going to be constantly pacing back and
forth. So if you have to keep it
inside, you know, maybe it's just for a couple months out of
the year. Just try to give them as much
room as possible. Plenty of visual barriers
somewhere that they feel secure and that they're not going to be
able to escape from. OK.
All right. Is there anything that we missed
as far as breeding and hatchling care?
No, maybe it maybe the time frame is, is when it takes
place. You know, usually they're
they're waking up in the spring and April to July is typically
where you're going to start seeing breeding behaviors.
And then usually towards the end of the end of the summer, May to
June, July is when you'll start noticing egg laying.
So I think that's important to know just to be able to keep an
eye out on when to expect eggs. OK.
And your guys are outside year round, you don't pull them into
a fridge to brewmate or anything.
I do not, no, I, I let them. I let them experience our our
very frigid Arizona winters. So are they, are they dug down
and just out asleep? Or if you have warm days, will
they come and poke their heads out?
It really varies on the animal. Some animals will come out on a
on a warm winter day, others will go down hard and they'll
dig down and you all see him for months at a time.
So it's not consistent. Some are a little bit more prone
to waking up and coming out and others just are are down for the
count. OK, it's good to know that
there's variation so that you don't panic.
Exactly. I think night time temperatures
are the most important. You know, right now it's it's
getting in the high 40s, low 50s at night once those night time
temperatures I think are about 6570°.
They're pretty much all going to be up for the for the year.
OK, good to know. All right, thank you, Cameron so
much for joining me today. For our listeners, be sure to
subscribe so you don't miss our next episode.
If people have questions about breeding 3 toed box turtles,
where's the best place for them to find you?
I'm on pretty much all the social media platforms,
Instagram, Facebook. I'm also on the TTPG Facebook
forum under Cameron Lamb Exotics as well as my TTPG
email.cameron@ttpg.org. Awesome.
Thanks again for joining me today.
Thank you for having me. Thank you for joining us for
Turtle Tea with TPG. Be sure to subscribe so you
don't miss out. We're brewing up new episodes
twice a month, every first and third Monday.
If you have any questions or suggestions for future topics,
you can reach me at wendy@tpg.org or find me on the
TPG group discussion on Facebook.
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