Biological characteristics of a snapping turtle
1.1 Classification status
Under the phylum Chordata (Chordata),, subphylum Vertebrata (Vertebrata), reptiles (Reptilia), tortoises (Tortoises), subclasses, order Testudormes (Tortoises), suborder Cryptodira (Snapping Tortoises), family Snapping Turtle ( Chelydridae), the case of the snapping turtle (Schweigger). Large Snapping Turtle Scientific Name: Macroclemys, English Name: Snapping Turtle, Small Snapping Turtle Scientific Name: Chelydra Serpentina SAP English Name: Common Snapping Turtle, Small Snapping Turtle Four subspecies of snapping turtles: 1) acutirostris South American Snapping Turtle, and is called the False Snapping Turtle; 2) Florida Osceola Snapping Turtle which can grow up to 17 inches and weighs 45 lbs. ) rossignonii Chinese and American snapping turtles, also known as snapping turtles; 4) serpentina North American snapping turtles, also known as kowtow turtles.
1.2 Localities
The main distribution is in North America, with Central America and the southeastern United States prevalent. Miami is an important growth area for snapping turtles. Snapping turtles are distributed in different parts of the United States, the southern turtle" and "northern turtle", it is said that the body color is divided into two kinds of "yellow-backed" and "black-backed snapping turtles are resistant to high temperatures, black, yellow-backed snapping turtles are resistant to low temperatures. China mainly imports species from Florida, except for a very small number of large snapping turtles, small snapping turtles Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hainan, Guangdong provinces distribution, the vast majority of Guangxi, Hunan, Shandong, Sichuan.
1.3 optimal temperature range
2 ℃?38 ℃ normal life can be normal overwintering, in excess of 100 ℃, 12 ℃ to shallow hibernation state into the depth of hibernation 6 ℃ from 15 ℃ to 17 ℃ a small amount of more than the normal feeding activities 18 ℃, 20 ℃?33 ℃ the most skillful activities, food, 28 ℃?30 ℃ optimal growth, the lack of movement over 34 ℃! The underwater sediments fall in the summer.
1.4 Maximum record size
Great snapping turtles have a maximum record size of 8?10 grams for a newborn body, with a general adult size of 61?76 centimeters, and a maximum record size of 79 centimeters, 107 kilograms for a 77?91 kilogram body (Brookfield Zoo, Chicago); small snapping turtles have an average newborn body shell length of 3.3 centimeters, and weigh 7.2 grams (minimum 3.1 centimeters, 5.5 centimeters, 5.5 grams, and 7.2 grams). minimum 3.1 cm, 5.8 G, maximum 3.7 cm, 14.8 g), the average adult size, shell length 31?46 cm, weight 23?36 kg, in essence, the largest individual reaches more than 38 kg. Ordinary turtle eggs are small snapping turtles oval (oval) for spherical, white, 23?33 mm in diameter, eggs 7?15 grams.
1.5 General characteristics
Large snapping turtles have a beak-like upper jaw, hooked numerous antennae on the head, neck, abdomen, raised ridges walking longitudinally, brown carapace with protrusions on each shield, brown ventral armor, with the upper edge of the shield, tail is long, building up with worm-like appendages, often lying in wait in the water, with the mouth appendages open to lure the mouths of nearby fish.
Small snapping turtles have small upper jaws like curved hooks, only a few tentacles, dorsal armor brown or dark brown, three longitudinal ridges, ribbed shields slightly elevated ridges gradually worn over time. The plastron is gray with the highest marginal shield, the tail is slightly shorter, and the most notable feature is the rear caudal spine also known as the ? called serrated ridges, caudally.
1.6 Differences between males and females
The dorsal carapace of female snapping turtles is a square caudal base with finer marginal reproductive spacing of the dorsal carapace, while the male carapace is rectangular, with a long stubby caudal base and farther margins of the reproductively spaced carapace.
Small snapping turtles in addition to the above features, the reproductive pore is located at the end of the caudal spine or spines with the first flush other than the caudal spine male female reproductive pore is located.
1.7 Habits
Similar to the basic habits of large and small snapping turtles. Usually bad buckets of water, land, dash and bite. Large snapping turtles surprisingly sudden attacks on other animals, small snapping turtles, along with the body turn around, turn around and find the target even after catching. Fingers or toes are webbed, aquatic, rates of interest in deep rivers, lakes, and mud puddles, occasionally touching brackish water habitats. In captivity, snapping turtles are better adapted to shallow and deep water, but in the hatchling stage of the swimming ability is not strong, should be given shallow water environment. Snapping turtles have a mixed diet, favoring carnivores, with a staple diet of fish, shrimp, frogs, salamanders, snakes, ducks, and waterfowl, with fresh water plants, and fallen fruit. Night feeding. The breeding habits of large snapping turtles and snapping turtles are not exactly the same, small snapping turtles mating season in the United States in April year November eggs in the Yangtze River region of China, the laying period from May to August (high-temperature areas to advance and prolong the laying time), generally each time the laying of 15?40 eggs, according to the actual situation of the size of the parent turtles and the degree of development of the anatomical visible in the reproduction season of the parental turtle laying 80 kilograms of body weight, which includes hard-shelled eggs of 20 eggs, the parent turtle is not the same. This includes 20 hard-shelled eggs. Eggs are laid several times a year. I have seen 9 kilograms of parental turtles lay 110, all fertilized and hatched baby turtles. The mating season for large snapping turtles in the U.S. is 2 to 4 months, and egg laying occurs from April through June at 10?52 per lay. Under natural conditions, large and small snapping turtle eggs incubate for 9?18 weeks, with a longer incubation period in cooler and drier weather. Artificial temperature control shortens the incubation period of snapping turtle eggs, and snapping turtles can hatch at a thermostat of 32°C for a sustained period of 60 days.
2 breeding technology
2.1 Turtle Pond Construction
New turtle farms should be selected in the water is still good, quiet environment, convenient transportation, the main body of the turtle pond including: the turtle pond itself, food, earth? Land, into the drainage system, overflow, etc., land use and in the pro-turtle pond land part used to establish the egg laying ground turtle resting place.
Turtle ponds, brick and cement structure, tanks surface water mud plaster plaster to prevent the turtle skin abrasions. General wide, from east to west, north, south, rectangular, circular will also be completed. Local conditions, the depth of 50?80cm, the deepest size does not exceed 120cm. 8?10cm around the pool to prevent the return of the side of the escape, also known as rolling. The bottom of the rectangular pool is set horizontally with an inclined slope, and the circle is set into a pot-shaped bottom, which is easy for the bottom of the cesspool.
Eat 1/3 into the water, 2/3 of the water, the water is 30 ° inclined, also known as the leading slope, in fact, the underwater part of the water part of the food table, if it is a pro-turtle swimming pool, the food part of the water unit leading the turtles to climb the laying ground. Fresh set sitting north to south, the north side of the turtle pool is more reasonable, food width of about 2 meters, the length of the length of the pool side of 80%. The spawning ground is 2?3 meters wide, the long food table is consistent with the site to fill 20?30 cm deep sand. Take a reverse canopy to favor the turtle's laying ground for laying eggs in cloudy and rainy days.
Into the drain at least 10 cm in diameter, in order to speed up the entry and drainage, while facilitating the discharge of sewage Note that the outfall should be located near the water table below the water table, because the dirt in the food near the turtles feeding as near the defecation of the food table. Overflow, the highest water level above the walls of the turtle pond to facilitate the discharge of organic suspended solids and heavy rainy season overflow channel.
The turtle pond is repeatedly soaked in water for at least a week to remove alkalinity. Thereafter 150ppm of quicklime to disinfect a new water before stocking.
2.2 Snapping Turtle Breeding
2.2.1 Selection of Parent Turtles
Pro turtles are generally selected from the wild original species, required to be healthy, free of trauma and internal injuries, the age of 5 years or more, the size of the 2.5KG, the best ?5 kg. Snapping turtle breeding seeds, must be 4 years old, the specifications of 6 kg more healthy turtle turtle species. Sexually mature female parent turtle laying amount of eggs under good conditions can be observed by eye, hand, light methods, such as checking, pro-male turtles lively. Female turtle male turtle is flexible, touch its head, snapping turtles should immediately open its mouth, issued an appeal, Sa sound, revealing the ferocious nature. Hand pro turtle's physique better legs and feet, retraction. Carefully observe the turtle's head and neck whether the free choice whether to check the cervical lymph nodes, open the mouth to see if the hooks in the throat tube, you can use a metal detector to check whether the turtles with hooks inside. Sex ratio of the size of the turtle, wild turtles, for example, small about 2.5kg parent turtle to the general specifications of 2:1, about 4kg medium-sized parent turtle 3:1 is appropriate, and then some of the 5kg above the parent turtle exactly in accordance with the ratio of 4:1.
2.2.2 Parental turtle cultivation
In order to promote the gonadal development of parental turtles, maintain a quiet environment, water quality, sewage timely refill of new water, and water disinfection of the parental turtle pool necessary, you can use micro-ecological agents, so that the bacteria dominated disinfectants and probiotics can not be commonly used drugs used at the same time, with quicklime without residue, chlorine dioxide, PVP-I, hydrofluoric acid, and other commonly used drugs. Enrofloxacin, and other commonly used probiotics photosynthetic bacteria, EM. use fresh animal feed, such as miscellaneous fish, shrimp, snails, mussels, earthworms and eliminate feeding deterioration bait. Animal feed can be sterilized by soaking in salt. If the wild relatives of the species of turtles, feeding time, mainly at night, accounted for 70% of the feeding in the morning to put the remaining 30%, and gradually domesticated into daytime feeding, if you do not domesticate can increase the workload at night. Artificial breeding of pro-turtle, in the daytime morning and afternoon feeding once 40% of the feed, in the morning, afternoon feeding 60%. Pro turtle feed nutritional requirements, you can add vitamins and minerals in the feed, supplemental nutrient solution injected into the body of the bait fish can be used, beneficial to the gonadal development of the pro-turtle green additives, such as traditional Chinese medicine, mold preparations, bioactive chromium, probiotics.
2.2.3 Turtle egg hatching
Collect turtle eggs. At night after laying eggs the next day at 9:00, usually after the afternoon party. Incubators, markers, and other records of newly mined snapping turtle eggs. Collection box, before the store directly after the incubator box sand gently snatch turtle eggs win, white fertilization point at one end of the animal pole towards the top of the animal pole and plant pole border about 10cm thickness is apparently normal fertilized eggs, the border is not clear, fertilization point was dotted distribution, which fertilized eggs can not be seen in the unfertilized egg fertilization point. Experience has shown that the unfertilized eggs of snapping turtle eggs with sticky sand on the surface for the fertilized eggs with smooth surface without sand. Why snapping turtle eggs gently snatch turtle egg protein tether membrane operation is not careful will affect the hatching.
Incubator. Food crates, wooden boxes, foam boxes, rather than the middle of the snapping turtle egg layer on the beach spawning box height of 10cm above the store, thick eggs under the sand 3cm, eggs around the sand layer 3cm, eggs of the upper layer of construction sand 4cm, egg spacing is about in advance to facilitate ventilation, the basic sand 1/2, 1/2 fine sand, fine sand particles size of 0.6mm, sand potassium permanganate 20ppm 1cm coarse sprinkled on the beach, one layer! Turn over to disinfect, dry and spare. Instead of sand incubation medium switch sponge is also feasible.
Incubation temperature control equipment. Obtained a national patent for automatic heating temperature control device (ZL 95239104.X), reliable, practical equipment, power supply, temperature adjustable, fully automatic operation, without supervision.
Hatching room. Use the structure of the inner eye corner of the housing, and can also be specially constructed. Do hatching chamber walls surrounded by key insulation material, must be placed in the insulation material, indoor set frame incubator, hatching box placed in the rack, rack layer to layer separated by a certain distance, easy to sprinkle water and moisturizing. Another method is to place the incubator directly on the floor and then place a second layer on the incubator bricks in the incubator in the four corners of the bricks, so the layers are stacked. Another method is more directly on the floor lay a layer of sandy soil corresponding to the store on the beach layer of eggs in the incubator room, set up a water tank, on the side of the bed of sand, so automatically hatchlings crawl into the water tank. In addition, the use of a special incubator large box, the inner layer placed in the incubator small box, the internal temperature control equipment and a small fan, is a simulation of money turtle hatching method.
Temperature, humidity, and ventilation are the three elements of snapping turtle hatching, and are the eternal theme of all turtle hatching. Snapping turtle hatching requires constant temperature control at 32 ° C, will hatch baby turtles in about 60 days, the temperature of the sand and air temperature is not the same, generally controlled in the sand temperature of 32 ° C, the air temperature is 35 ° C or so. Humidity control includes absolute humidity, relative humidity, absolute humidity, sand moisture content of about 8% of the hands to form the requirements of the group, let go of loose prevail, the relative humidity of the air in the incubation room can be measured with a hygrometer, rearing alligator snapping turtles need 85% relative humidity, take artificial occasional sprinkling of water, sprinkling of water can be more suitable in the hatching stage, some late as possible as little as possible watering to maintain a certain degree of dryness, to prevent the formation of fertilized eggs The young turtles are stimulated by too much water and premature birth. In addition, too much watering is not conducive to the breathing and ventilation of fertilized eggs.
1?2 weeks after the hatching of young turtles in the temporary period, the yolk sac of young turtles just hatched for about 2 days, after the gradual absorption of the completion of the process of entering the artificial temporary feeding. Juvenile turtles can be opened with optional egg yolk, liver, red worms, specially formulated feed. About plastic pots density per square meter 100 relay containers. Please note that the water is not too deep, it should be 2 to 3 centimeters, covering the turtles is limited, in the water level is too deep, may be due to the newly hatched juvenile turtles swimming ability is not strong, easy to lead to drowning. And shallow, water quality deterioration, easy to change the water diligently, small containers, change the water, 1-2 times a day, generally large pools of transient, dedicated every 48 hours to change the water.
2.3 Factory turtle farming
The juvenile turtles enter the factory farming stage after the period of temporary rearing. At this stage, through the automatic temperature control technology of the factory, the newly hatched baby turtles - hatchlings are stocked in the best environment to accelerate their growth and shorten the breeding cycle. Batches of hatched baby turtles gradually enter the winter season, and in the natural state, the poor physical condition of the baby turtles struggles in the winter, causing more deaths. Under artificial conditions, provide the best temperature and full-price feed, take the necessary ecological control measures and winter, raised in the greenhouse in the spring specifications of about 500g, the summer temperature rise, hatchling turtles moved out of the greenhouse environment to maintain the natural open-air swimming pools, a few months after the growth of 1500 grams of commercial turtles on the market. Practice has proved that the slow growth stage of young turtles, snapping up turtles to reach more than 250 grams of growth faster, faster, the average monthly weight of more than 200 grams of outdoor rearing stage of the growth rate, when it reaches a size of 500 grams, its growth rate is very impressive. In other words, the use of factory farming, snapping turtles 1500 grams of only 1 year from about the birth of 7 grams of a long period of time, such as the use of natural temperature farming, not only the survival rate is low for the 1500g commercial turtle specifications need to reach the mating time of three years. Factory farming snapping turtle? Turtle can shorten the breeding cycle. Changing market, early generation of beneficial to seize the opportunity to reduce unit costs and improve competitiveness.
Factory farming snapping turtle? The basic points of the turtle: 1) greenhouse construction. Storage heating energy use of energy efficient greenhouse, not only investment, insulation performance enhancement. Roof insulation materials using two layers of film clamped around the wall clamps, special attention is paid to the fact that must be placed on the indoor floor insulation materials, thermal insulation materials for insulation and energy-saving effect of the greenhouse new and domestically produced, raising turtles only in this way to ensure that the principle of greenhouse refrigeration is the same to ensure that the thermal insulation effect. 2) Temperature control device. Advanced patented technology can be used in a small greenhouse or large greenhouse turtle energy-saving greenhouse automatic hot water circulation heating device, obtained by the State Intellectual Property Office, Patent No.: ZL 01,217,344.4 issued by the patent certificate. The most important features of the patent is: changes in warm water need to be adjusted to the fully enclosed operation of automatic heating of the greenhouse air and water, the key is the automatic circulation of hot water to ensure that the use of anthracite, coal consumption is only 500 grams per square meter per day, energy saving significantly. 3) Aeration equipment. Greenhouse presents high temperature, high density, high pollution characteristics, oxygen, help to improve water quality, conducive to organic decomposition, reduce pollution. Generally support 2.2 kilowatts per 500 square meters of greenhouse aerator. (4) Into the drainage system and the bottom of the pool requires a certain tilt turtle pool and outdoor construction requirements. Drainage outlet with a diameter of 10cm PVC pipe inserted into the sealed extraction of the drainage system, simple and feasible. 5) Food group. Slope with asbestos to the turtle pool, underwater 1/3, 2/3 of the water in the food table feeding feed underwater, and gradually transferred to the water supply is conducive to the observed feeding conditions, lower bait. 6) Disinfection to prevent disease. Regularly use lime slurry diluted water to splash the whole pool timer automatic turtle water disinfection, and the use of advanced ozone generators, effective and low cost. 7) Raise live configuration. Make their own feed, buy a small feed production unit, utilizing the state-of-the-art feed formula, snapping turtle feed ingredients in the white fish meal, alpha-starch, vegetable protein, minerals, vitamins, probiotics, prebiotics, can add other green feed additives to promote the economic growth of snapping turtles in order to reduce the incidence of nutritional disorders, and to improve the breeding survival rate. 8) Feeding management. Small snapping turtles at the stage of development fed with feed, powdered feed need to add water, corn oil, fish oil, made of soft pellets or slugs, food table. If the snapping turtle breeding species fed puffed feed, floating on the surface of the water, forming a dynamic bait to lure long? Sitting still snapping turtles to devour it. Feeding twice a day, each ration is basically eaten within two hours, except for a little proper. Found changes in water quality, high concentrations of ammonia, it is necessary to change the water in the water, water chemical analysis methods can be conditional turtle farms classic or modern instruments to automatically test water quality, and the use of computerized monitoring of greenhouse snapping turtle activity tracking and observation, found that the problem, and take immediate measures. Modern technology has been able to do automatic testing, automatic water change automatic analysis and automatic alarm. Reminder of "warm water change" during the rearing process. Juvenile turtles are moved indoors and outdoors to gradually warm up, when the juvenile turtles are moved outdoors to gradually calm down, pay attention to the temperature balance. Always keep in mind the agriculture in the whole 12 words: "environmental regulation, structure, regulation, biological regulation", and savor
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