How To Breed Terrapins

Perhaps you have been wondering how to breed your terrapins. It is actually quite easy. Follow these instructions to learn how to end up with baby terrapins.

1. Step 1: Match Make

   In order to breed your terrapins you'll need a male and a female terrapin that are sexually mature (in age, this can be anywhere from five to eleven years, depending on how they were raised.) They need a proper environment, which consists of both water and land. While terrapins are comfortable on land, they only actually breed in water. An outside environment is also more natural for them.

2. Step 2: Create The Proper Environment

   Terrapins like an environment with both dry land and water. However, terrapins will only do the actual breeding in water. Be sure the habitat is the correct temperature for your particular breed of terrapin. It is easiest to get the terrapins to breed in an outdoor environment. Since it is not always feasible to have your terrapins outside, you'll have to be a little tricky and mimic it.

3. Step 3: Make Your Box

   Your female terrapin will prefer a nice box she can climb in to lay her eggs. Fill it with at least 12 inches of moist soil or sand in preparation for the laying of the eggs.

4. Step 4: Create The Atmosphere

   In order to prepare the terrapins for mating you should either a) allow them to hibernate (which requires them being outside), or b) separate them for two to three months before the breeding season (which usually takes place throughout May), and this will simulate the hibernation that usually takes place in the wild. When the terrapins see each other again this should trigger the instinct to mate.

5. An interesting fact about terrapin females is that they can, and sometimes do, store sperm for up to four years. While this isn't a common happening, it is entirely a possibility that if your female doesn't give birth immediately she could lay the eggs from this mating years later.

6. Step 5: Mark The Eggs

   Once your female lays the eggs you must handle them with extreme caution, do not flip them over and carefully mark the top of the egg to insure this. The eggs are fragile, and should be handled as such.

7. Step 6: Store The Eggs

   Now you should either incubate the eggs (which is proven to have far higher success rates,) or place them in a box with environmental conditions similar to those in the wild (think moist, sandy areas like at a beach.) Make an incubation container out of vermiculate from a garden store. Use equal parts of that and water, making the vermiculate moist but not soaked.

8. The temperature at which you store the eggs will actually decide the sex of your future terrapins. 24 to 28° C (75.2 - 82.4° F) will produce male offspring, while 30 - 32° C (86 - 89.6°F) will produce females. It should be noted, however, that studies have found a correlation between higher temperatures of incubation and shell (as well as other) irregularities.

9. Step 7: Wait For The Hatchlings

   Store the eggs at room temperature up to about 80 degrees. In about 60 to 120 days you will find your new terrapins beginning to hatch. The success rate in these types of hatching is fairly low, and depends on certain other factors (such as incubation vs. environmental hatching,) but once these steps are followed little terrapins should be on the way.

10. Keep your baby terrapins seperate from the adult terrapins, a while terrapins aren't violent creatures by nature, older terrapins have been known to attack younger ones. Also, remember to feed the babies a well balanced diet daily.