Baby Terps and Eating!!!

[jjchronowski@osprey.smcm.edu]

jjchronowski@osprey.smcm.edu

August 1, 2001 at 11:29 am #15256

Hi All, My name is Joe Chronowski and I am new to this group. Recently (last weekend) I hatched 21(out of 30)Northern Diamondback Terrapins that I had incubating for two monthes. As a third-year biology major at St. Mary’s College of Maryland I have access to most of the lab materials I need for thier care. Right now the turtles are in a very large aquarium in our wet-lab. They recieve a constant flow of water directly from the St. Mary’s River. Salinity is about 12.6ppt and temperature is about 25 degrees celcius. I have tried feeding them black worm, small grass shrimp, and small brine shrimp but I have not observed any eating yet. Should I be concerned? I expected that after a week of life outside the shell they would be eating ravenously. Any detailed advice to their care and dieting habits as babies that anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks alot. -Joe Chronowski

[Jonathan Helms]

Jonathan Helms

August 1, 2001 at 12:25 pm #15257

Hi Joe, Welcome to the egroup. I had the same problem with my hatchlings earlier this year. Don’t worry this is normal. Here is part of a page from my website that talks about feeding hatchlings. It can be found at http://www.geocities.com/diamondbackterrapins/ and under the feeding ideas page. When a diamondbacks hatches out of their egg they have an egg sack attached to the bottom of their plastron. This sack can be very large even the same size as the hatchling. The egg sack normally takes a couple of days to shrink down, do not attempt to feed them until the sack has completely shrunken to a small knob. The turtle’s body feeds off the egg sack and if it starts eating food while the egg sack is still attached the turtle’s body might stop feeding off the sack and it will not shrink, which may cause serious health problems. Once the egg sack has shrunk the turtle should be offered food, in most cases the hatchling will not start eating for about a week. Live bloodworm are an excellent starter food for any turtle hatchling, all of my hatchlings have gone for the live bloodworms after only a few days of trying. Do not let them get spoiled on the bloodworms, slowly start adding Reptomin as soon as they start eating the food sticks stop feeding them the blood worms. Once they are about two weeks old they should be mainly eating the food sticks. If you have any more question feel free to ask. Thanks Jonathan http://www.geocities.com/diamondbackterrapins/

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