How do yellow bellied sliders mate

Recommended Posts. Report post. Posted January 30, Hi i have three yelloow bellied sliders, 2 females and one male. My male is around 3 years old and I have previously been told he is sexually mature. Please help! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites. MAC's Morphs.

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Register a new account. Sign in Already have an account? If you looked up info on their breeding habits, then I guess you know how to tell the sexes apart now. Males stay smaller and have long front claws while females get big, up to 10 inches and have short front claws. Some male turtles can be very horny and will stress females out by trying to breed with them constantly. Just keep an eye on your turtles and if your male keeps pestering the female, you might want to separate them.

If actual mating took place, your female is going to probably lay eggs, about of them. You are going to need a place for her to lay them in so on one end of the tank provide a tub, easily accessible to the turtle, with a mixture of moist soil, sand, moss or vermiculite. Make sure the tub is about 12" inches deep. Most water turtles lay several clutches per summer with as few as 2 and as many as 10 eggs. Make sure your female gets plenty of calcium and vitamin D3.

Your female will be very restless when she is ready to lay eggs. It is important that she lays her eggs or she could die from egg binding. I have never bred sliders before but I have bred painted turtles and their habits are somewhat similar. All my turtles were kept outside during the summer in a small pond and laid eggs in sandy soil I provided for them.

I never bred any indoors. The next spring, the hatchlings emerge from the nest and enter the water to begin feeding. Adults also prefer a high- protein diet when it is available. But slider turtles can subsist on a vegetative diet, although their growth rates may be significantly lower than that of turtles whose diet is mostly meat. Plant materials in the slider turtle's diet include algae, leaves, stems, roots, fruits and seeds. They feed on larger invertebrates, such as water insects, and vertebrates such as small fish, tadpoles and frogs.

Slider turtles are not normally able to capture healthy fish. Sliders, as well as other species of turtles, can live for more than a quarter of a century. These animals show no signs of senility at this age, research has shown. Breeding may occur only once or several times, and one female may be bred by multiple males. Each male may also breed multiple females. Because sperm retention is possible, a female may produce numerous clutches of fertile eggs over a two- to four-year period from a single successful breeding.

No turtle or tortoise, no matter how aquatic its lifestyle, lays eggs in the water. In the wild, most use their hind legs to dig a well-formed nest in moist sand or soil. The nest is often as deep as it is possible for the female turtle to reach. Prior to digging, the female may moisten the soil by releasing water from her bladder. If she encounters obstructions, she may discontinue her digging and choose an alternate nesting area later on the same day or a day or two later.

Some females may dig several nests before actually laying. Once the nest is suitably dug, the female lays her complement of eggs — which may vary from one to more than two dozen. Some marine turtles lay or more eggs at each nesting. The nest is then refilled with the loosened soil, tamped down to the best of the female's ability, and incubation is left to nature.

Preferred incubation temperatures vary by species, but are usually between 78 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Temperature-dependent rather than genetic sex determination is known to occur in many turtle species. With these, eggs incubated at warm temperatures produce one sex, eggs incubated at the cool end of the temperature-suitability spectrum produce the other sex, and those that incubate at temperatures in between produce both sexes.