Vermiculite/Perlite
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Hmmmm…another good one for comparing experiences and ideas – Perlite and vermiculite. I’ve been using vermiculite for years, but I think some of my eggs get too wet from it. I think perlite may keep them drier, but I worried about it being too dry. My impression is that is doesn’t “wick” or draw the water up like vermiculite. I have used sphagnum moss for spotted turtle eggs, thinking that they might need the acidity – vermiculite and perlite are neutral, I understand. For my Chinese box turtle eggs, I use dirt from where they are laid. They need to be kept very dry. I believe that eggs with hard shells need to be kept drier and eggs that are leathery need to be kept more moist. -Rick Scott, I tried perlite last year and it seemed to work better for me for the dbt eggs. I don’t like it for my other turtle species though. I didn’t mean to say that a baby with fused or double scutes wouldn’t grow up to be a healthy animal just that some deformaties can affect the quality of life. I haven’t seen a pig tail on a dbt. Vickie modelgrafx@… wrote:
I tried perlite int he beginning and all my eggs started become dehydrated so I switched to vermiculite. Julie T greentrees wrote:
Rick, I had been using vermiculite for the first 2 years I incubated dbt eggs but felt that they were drying out too much so I switched this year just to see how it worked. I mixed 1 to 1 with equal water by weight and buryed the eggs half way. Then I covered the container with a lid with a few tiny holes in it. I only opened it briefly every couple of weeks and I had no denting until just days before they hatched. No other water was added. I tried this also with my Chinese eggs and it did not work. Fairly early on I could see air bubbles forming so I switched these eggs back to vermiculite. I will only use perlite now with my dbts and Pancakes as it also worked well for those. Chinese and Stars in vermiculite. Vickie
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