Does anyone provide a breeding method for Sukada turtles?

Introduction to Sukada Culture Geochelone sulcata is the third largest tortoise in the world, with a length of over 80cm. Habitat in the Sahara desert, including Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Chad, Sudan and Ethiopia. They have brown or pale yellow oval-shaped broad carapace, with serrated edges at the front and end of the carapace, slightly inclined edges at the end, and annular growth lines on the carapace. Sukada's navel is milky white, and the terminal navel is cracked. Their skin is yellow or brown, and the skin surface is very rough. Sukada is a fast-growing and strong tropical giant turtle, so you must have heating equipment to raise them outside the tropics, and you must have enough financial resources and psychological preparation, because they are too big and heavy, and they can accompany you for more than half a century! Once you decide to raise Sukadas, you must provide them with enough feeding space, perfect equipment and reasonable diet. When you successfully raise them to 80cm, Sukada's majestic momentum and your sense of accomplishment are absolutely incomparable to other small pets! First of all, I suggest you buy artificial individuals instead of wild sukadas. In addition to protecting wild resources, artificial individuals have better health status and stronger ability to adapt to the environment and accept artificial feed. Don't buy turtles that are too small (the abdominal armor is less than 5cm). Generally, the survival rate of young turtles over 8cm is higher. Pay attention to whether there is a god in the turtle's eyes. Don't buy those with tears or snot. Secondly, holding the turtle with your hand feels that the turtle is heavier and the limbs should be strong, so that the limbs can hold up the whole body steadily when crawling. Those with fecal residue in anus may be individuals with gastrointestinal diseases, and it is difficult to feed. Check whether the turtle shell is hard. If the turtle shell is too soft, it is calcium deficiency. If the turtle shell is tilted, there are gray or red patches and smells, it is likely to be rotten nails. (Internal injuries are often caused by squeezing during transportation) Equip basic equipment: feeding box x 1, heating pad or ceramic heater x 1, temperature controller x 1, padding, water basin x 1, vegetable basin x 1, and hiding hole X/kloc-0. It's hard to say how big the breeding environment is in Cadas, because they grow very fast, so you may need to constantly change your breeding box when raising this giant turtle. Generally speaking, for larvae about 8cm, a standard reptile box (60cm long) can last about 2 years. As you grow up, you must gradually expand the breeding environment. Generally speaking, the feeding box should be at least five times as long as the tortoise shell and three times as wide as the tortoise body. When your turtles grow to more than 50cm, you can raise Sukadas in the balcony and other places in summer, but in winter you have to customize a feeding box with a suitable size for them, or use a small room with air conditioning as a feeding box. The material of the feeding box can be Chinese fir, paulownia and plastic, but the premise is that the feeding box must be ventilated, and the material of the feeding box has no peculiar smell and toxic chemical pollution. Do not heat the equipment with a heating stone. For turtles, heating stones are the worst heating equipment. The shell and skin of turtles, especially young turtles, are very sensitive to temperature, and heating stones often causes serious or even fatal burns. For turtles, the best bottom heating device is a heating pad. In the wild, Sukada sunbathes to raise body temperature, because reptiles mainly regulate their body temperature through breathing, which means that the temperature of the air determines the body temperature of reptiles. Therefore, the ceramic heater is a good heating device for turtles. The heating equipment should be equipped with a thermostat to keep the temperature constant within a suitable range. Lighting If your Sukadas can't get a certain amount of sunlight directly every day, then you need a UVB lamp to help them produce vitamin D3, which is very important for them to absorb calcium and grow bones. Pay attention to professional reptile shops when buying UVB, and avoid buying fake UVB lamps. The UVB lamp should be placed above the feeding box without shielding, and it should be turned on for about 10 hour every day to ensure that Sukadar can absorb enough UVB. The service life of UVB lamps is generally half a year. Even if the light is still on after half a year, there is actually no UVB. Therefore, records must be made so as to replace the UVB lamp in time. Other lighting equipment is mainly used for viewing, generally used at night, and it is best to use red light, because reptiles have weak sensitivity to red light and will not cause adverse reactions. Mats are in the wild, and Sukada likes to dig holes, because they have to hide in relatively cool caves to avoid the scorching sun and keep their bodies moist. So try to satisfy their instinct to dig. Generally speaking, hay, bark particles, etc. It's good bedding. However, pine sawdust is not suitable as bedding material, because their oil will cause harm to Sukada's respiratory tract. Other unsuitable bedding materials include pure yellow sand and shells. When bedding, it is best to put several layers of newspapers under the padding, so that turtle excrement will be absorbed by newspapers through the padding, which will not pollute the bottom of the box and is convenient for cleaning. Other equipment pots and food pots should be as low as possible, not too high. If the tortoise struggles to get up and eat, sometimes it will fall, and if it can't be turned over, it will suffocate. To avoid caves, the size should be appropriate, and turtles can hide in them. Usually go to rest after eating. A dark and quiet environment can relieve their stress, which is especially important for newly purchased turtles. A stable and suitable environment should be arranged in advance before purchasing Sukadas, which will help to relieve the pressure of Sukadas and help it adapt to the new environment more quickly. Ventilation and humidity are first of all ventilation, and the ventilation of the feeding box must be kept good, otherwise it will easily cause diseases. Therefore, both sides of the feeding box should be perforated or fitted with screens or shutters. It is not advisable to feed Su Cadas in that kind of closed container, such as a fish tank. Because it is a desert turtle, the breeding humidity of Sukada should not be too high, and it is most appropriate to control it in the range of 40%-50%, not more than 70%. For heating equipment, they should not be placed in the center of the feeding box, but at one end of the feeding box, which is helpful to create a temperature gradient and let tortoises choose the appropriate temperature zone. At the same time, placing thermometers in high temperature area and low temperature area is helpful to fully understand the temperature in the box. If the bottom heating equipment (heating pad) is used, the thermometer in the high temperature area must be placed at the bottom of the box above the heating pad, because the temperature at the bottom of the box will be higher than the temperature of the air in the box, so the temperature at the bottom of the box is the actual feeding temperature. If it is too high, it will cause burns. The shelter should be placed in the low temperature area, because when the turtle is resting, it will dehydrate if the temperature is too high. It should be noted that some people think that Sukada is a desert turtle, so it needs high temperature, which is completely wrong! Because at the hottest time of the day, the wild Sukada will hide in caves to avoid the high temperature in the desert. So the temperature gradient should be controlled between 23-30 degrees Celsius. If the temperature of the feeding box is higher than 35 degrees Celsius for a long time, Sukada will refuse to eat, dehydrate and even die, which is most likely to happen among young turtles. Other decorations and other decorative items I suggest you don't put them here. If necessary, consider placing your Sukada after it is fully adapted to the environment. Because these things (such as rockery, etc. ) may cause tortoises to fall and suffocate, especially Sukada, which has not adapted to the environment. Some decorations may also contain chemicals harmful to turtles, so try to avoid redundant settings. Feeding staple food in the wild, Sukada's staple food is all kinds of weeds, grasses and alfalfa, so in their growth process, they need a lot of high-fiber food. In other words, you can raise your Sukada like a cow, because their diet structure is very similar. 75% of Sukada's diet should be weeds, grass and alfalfa. How to get grass Sukada needs a lot of grass to provide enough fiber for its growth. You can buy the grass (alfalfa) you need from the pet market, which is safer. If you live in a remote place or in the countryside, you can pick grass by yourself, but be careful not to pick weeds on the side of the road, because these weeds may be polluted by automobile exhaust. At the same time, weeds cannot be collected in the green belt of the community, because the grass here often carries pesticides. In fact, a good way to judge whether there are pesticides in the grass is to see whether there are grasshoppers and other insects in the haystack. If there are many insects in the haystack, you can safely collect them. The collected grass should be soaked in clear water for at least two hours, with or without pesticides, and then dried and preserved. Forage should be stored in a dry and ventilated place, even if they become hay, because the main fiber components will not be lost. But your Sukada may not get hay for a while. It doesn't matter. Just be hungry a few times. If you can't collect suitable pasture or buy pasture where you live, you can try to grow it yourself. You can buy alfalfa seeds from the market, then plant them in flat flowerpots by the window and water them once a day, so that weeds will grow quickly. When feeding, you only need to cut off the upper part of the weeds without hurting the grass roots, so that your Sukada will have inexhaustible fresh grass! The remaining 25% of Sukada's diet is leaves of various vegetables or plants. Such as mustard, green vegetables, watercress, oil wheat, grass head, grape leaves and dandelion. At the same time, be careful not to feed beets, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, corn, beans, tomatoes, beans and any high protein plants. Don't feed fruit, you can feed cactus instead. It should also be noted that any food should be guaranteed not to be contaminated by chemicals such as pesticides. Dry the leaves when you feed them, and don't pour too much water on them, otherwise it will be easy to have diarrhea. Eating enough food is very important for the growth of Sukada, so be careful not to overfeed Sukada, especially the young turtles, otherwise it will easily lead to back fat. For young turtles born within half a year, the daily feeding amount should not exceed 1/4 cups (one cup has a capacity of about 250ml), not more or less. The feeding amount of Sukada is about 65,438+0/2 cups from half a year to one year, and the daily food intake of Sukada should be controlled at about 65,438+0 cups in one year, and then gradually increase with the growth. Never give them as much as possible, because their appetite seems limitless. The consequence of this is probably that their bodies grow too fast, and their bones and crustaceans can't keep up, which eventually leads to a series of problems. In a word, controlling food intake and making them grow slowly and steadily is the key to raising Su Cadas. Breeding Sukada is a kind of large turtle, which is difficult to breed in general family rearing environment. At present, there is no report of successful breeding in China. Although Sukada's wild resources are very scarce, it has been successfully propagated in the United States and other countries, and those large farms have also been propagated through wild Sukada. The sexual maturity of Sukada is generally more than 20 years, the male is earlier than the female, and the adult female is larger than the male, which can generally be about 1/3. Adult male Sukada has a thick tail and a short female tail; The male's abdominal nail is sunken, while the male and female's abdomen is flat; The male reproductive cavity is far from the end of the abdominal nail, and the female is closer. In the wild, Sukada Si Tong often mates in September-65438+1October, usually after the rainy season, and lays eggs in March-April of the following year. At this time, the male Sukada will become very irritable, and they will fight for territory and females by hitting their opponents' bodies. In the process of mating, the male will chase the female, circle around the female, and finally lie on the female's tail and insert it for mating. By the next spring, the female Sukada will dig a cave, lay 15-30 eggs and bury them. After about three months of incubation (temperature 27-30 degrees), the turtles hatched. The newly hatched turtle will have an egg yolk, so be careful not to break it. After it absorbs the yolk by itself, it can feed normally. Diseases The following are some common diseases and treatments of turtles. Because people's understanding of reptiles is not comprehensive, some treatments are limited to the early or middle stage of the disease, and even if some diseases are cured, they will bring permanent sequelae or deformities to your turtle. Therefore, creating a healthy environment for your turtle is the best way to prevent diseases. Remember that prevention is always better than cure! Stones put stones in the first place because Sukada is a turtle that is very prone to stones, especially larvae. The initial stage of lithiasis can still be cured, but if it develops to the middle and late stage, surgery is needed. However, there is a lack of relevant surgical expertise and professional reptile veterinarians in China, so the actual cure probability is almost zero. Stone is simply a disease caused by calcium salt precipitation and accumulation in soft-shelled turtle. If you find that your turtle suddenly loses appetite, is sleepy, and has difficulty in excreting or even cannot excrete, it is probably a stone. Early treatment is to strengthen bathing and raise the water temperature. You can raise the water temperature to 35-37 degrees, and take a bath 1-2 times a day, with each time not exceeding 1 hour. If the symptoms are mild, the stones will be excreted by the tortoise itself. If bathing doesn't work, be sure to choose medicine. The most commonly used medicine in China is "Compound Lysimachia Granule", which can be mixed with 20 pills in food every day. If the stone is shallow, you can try to dig into the turtle's drain hole with a small ear scoop and slowly pull it out; If the stone is deep, a plug can be injected into the drain hole of the turtle to help remove the stone. These treatments will do harm to the soft-shelled turtle, so we should pay attention not to let the temperature of the feeding environment be too high and too dry, take more baths, record the acid excretion cycle, and at the same time, don't feed foods with high protein or high oxalic acid, and don't supplement calcium too much and too frequently. Calcium supplementation must be accompanied by sufficient UVB irradiation. This is the most effective way to prevent stones. Cold soft-shelled turtle will catch a cold like human, for many reasons, such as: the temperature difference between day and night is too large, the bath is not dry, the diet is unreasonable, resulting in decreased immunity and too little sunshine. The main symptoms of a cold are runny nose, drowsiness and loss of appetite. Generally speaking, a cold is not a serious disease, but if it is not treated in time, it is likely to develop into pneumonia, stomatitis and even fatal! If the symptoms are mild, first check the feeding environment, adjust the unreasonable environment (refer to "environment"), and raise the temperature of the feeding box to 28-32 degrees. Adding vitamins (such as effervescent tablets) when soaking in water can enhance the physique of soft-shelled turtles, and at the same time supplement comprehensive vitamins special for reptiles. If the symptoms don't improve after a week, you should turn to medication. Generally, oxytetracycline is selected, and the dosage depends on the weight of soft-shelled turtle (40mg per kilogram of soft-shelled turtle), and the drug is stopped once every two days until the symptoms disappear. Enteritis enteritis is mainly due to indigestion caused by eating unclean food or sudden drop in temperature after feeding. The main symptoms are diarrhea, vomiting, red and swollen anus, and sometimes excrement. The main treatment method is to keep the temperature of the feeding box stable, not to fluctuate greatly, to keep the food basin and drinking water clean, and to avoid high-moisture food. Oxytetracycline (20mg/kg soft-shelled turtle) or berberine (10mg/kg soft-shelled turtle) can be used for drug treatment once a day for one week, which can generally be cured. Parasites ectoparasites mainly exist in wild or free-range turtles. Exoparasites mainly feed on turtle skin, bite it and suck its blood. Usually visible to the naked eye, the main species are ticks, fleas, ticks, mites and so on. During the treatment, the worm can be taken out of the turtle with tweezers, and then disinfected with iodophor to kill the eggs. Parasitic turtles in the body may also ingest parasitic eggs while ingesting food, which may lead to infection. Therefore, no matter how healthy your turtle looks, you should deworm it regularly, usually once a year. Before deworming, you must first determine whether your turtle is strong. For soft-shelled turtles with weak constitution, it is necessary to strengthen their constitution before expelling insects. Common parasites in the body are ascaris lumbricoides, tapeworms, coccidia, nematodes, trypanosoma, trichomonas, Clonorchis sinensis, Haematococcus, Echinococcus, etc. The most effective and economical anthelmintic is the Schilling worm. The dosage of 5- 10-20cm soft-shelled turtle is 1/8, that of 10-20cm soft-shelled turtle is 1/6, and that of individuals over 20cm is 1/4. Generally, a course of treatment is twice, one week apart. The method is to pry open your mouth and put the tablets directly in, or you can roll the tablets in the leaves to induce them to take them. Nail rot is generally a disease caused by internal injuries caused by extrusion during transportation or long-term lack of UVB during feeding. The main symptoms are gray or red patches on the surface of crustaceans, which feel soft, oozing blood and smelly when squeezed by hand. Treatment: Remove the crustacean and carrion from the affected area with a sterilized knife, then clean the wound with iodophor or 1%-2% hydrogen peroxide, and finally apply chlortetracycline eye ointment. Repeat the above steps every two to three days. The treatment of rotten nails takes a long time, usually more than one month. It should be noted that the wound should be kept dry during the treatment and should not be soaked in water. Other polyculture problems Some people like to polyculture turtles, which is actually very inappropriate, because turtles generally have territorial consciousness, so polyculture will inevitably lead to fights. At the same time, tortoises may spread some diseases to each other (especially wild individuals), so don't mix any tortoises. Soaking in water is very important for raising turtles, because soaking in water helps turtles' gastrointestinal peristalsis, helps digestion and increases body surface humidity. At the same time, soaking in water can also stimulate the excretion of turtles, and soaking in water often can make turtles develop the habit of excreting in water. For Sukada, it must be noted that the water temperature should not be too different from the feeding temperature, but slightly higher than the temperature of the feeding box. Generally, the water depth is slightly lower than the breastplate, but not too deep, because Sukada's swimming skills are poor. Too deep water can easily cause choking and sometimes even suffocation! The soaking time is controlled at about half an hour, usually after Sukada defecates. If your Sukadah excretes acid when soaking in water, be sure to record its acid discharge cycle. Generally, the acid discharge cycle of Sukada is 1-4 days. If it is found that Sukadah does not excrete acid for a long time (such as more than a week), it is necessary to be alert to stones. Sukada larvae soak in water at least once every two days, which can be reduced to 2-3 times a week after one year, and adults can soak in water 1-2 times a week. In fact, soaking in water has many benefits. Don't be stingy with soaking your turtle in water. After soaking in water, dry the turtle with a towel and put it in a breeding box. The advantage of this is to prevent turtles from catching cold. Nutrition addition To make your Sukada grow healthily, besides reasonable diet structure and correct feeding, proper nutrition addition is also very important. It is mainly the supplement of vitamins and calcium, and special reptile nutritional additives should be selected. Usually twice a week, the ratio of vitamins to calcium powder is 2: 1, that is, two teaspoons of vitamins and one teaspoon of calcium powder are evenly sprinkled in food for feeding. Pay attention to calcium supplementation, and you must receive UVB or unobstructed sunlight at the same time, otherwise it will lead to stones due to calcium precipitation in the body, which is often fatal!