Five ways to prevent crocodile turtles from killing each other

Crocodile turtles, native to North and Central America, are strong and aggressive, and are a unique species of turtles. Crocodile turtles are famous for their high reproduction rate, fast growth, high meat production and delicious meat, which has been favored by the majority of farmers and has been promoted and raised in many areas with considerable economic benefits. However, in the process of artificial high-density culture, crocodile turtles kill each other because of their nature, environment, feed, mating and other reasons, and the survival rate is not high. In order to solve this problem, Longtouge Amphibian and Reptile Research Institute in Haining City, Zhejiang Province, based on more than ten years of breeding experience, summed up five methods to prevent crocodile turtles from killing each other.

First, the male and female groups should be matched properly. The male crocodile turtle has the same fighting habit as the rooster, and the female turtle is warm, but this habit can also be seen. The ratio of male and female turtles in the artificial breeding pond should be 1 ∶ 2: 3. As soon as there are many male turtles, they are bound to fight each other because of mating. Male and female turtles can also be raised in separate ponds, merged in the estrus mating season, and then reared in separate ponds after the mating period is over, so as to reduce fighting.

Second, do not introduce wild turtles. Animals can become tame after several generations of domestication, and crocodile turtles can also be domesticated like lions, tigers and bears. Wild crocodile turtles are ferocious and wild, often raiding nearby people and animals. Training and domestication takes more than two or three generations to see the effect. In addition, wild crocodile turtles are used to living in a large-scale environment, and they have to climb hundreds of meters when spawning and enter the artificial pond not to lay eggs. In addition, some farms in the border areas of Guangxi, Guangdong and Yunnan sell turtles and other animals as artificially domesticated animals at low prices. These smuggled turtles are even more ferocious, and what is more serious is that they carry sources of international quarantine bacteria. can lead to human and animal infection, difficult to cure, the consequences are very terrible.

Third, set up bait tables at more points. Turtle pond, such as a small area of bait table, turtle circle together to compete for food bite phenomenon, serious head, neck, legs, tail caused disability. Therefore, the bait table can be set up in several places. Feeding the required bait in three batches in the morning, noon and afternoon every day can reduce the competition for food and make each turtle eat until it is full. The amount of food eaten in summer is the largest, and the food thrown is eaten within 2 hours. Feed nutrition content should be comprehensive, not monotonous, conditional should be more animal feed. It is also necessary to have as much space as possible in the breeding pool, to keep the environment quiet, and to prevent excessive interference from strangers.

Fourth, enter the pool with the same batch of turtles at the same time. Generally speaking, the phenomenon of fighting with each other seldom occurs in the same batch of turtles, because they already know each other. In the introduction, it should be noted that the body size should be basically the same, such as the wide gap in size, especially the size of the male tortoise is too large, it is easy to cause a struggle, just like the turtles that grow up in batches, the size is slightly, and the fight is smaller. All the turtles in a pond have to enter the pool at the same time, so that they are faced with a new environment, adapt and grow together, and prevent the phenomenon that the advanced mountain gate is bigger, and fight less.

Fifth, set up nests. Crocodile turtles have the habit of lurking at the bottom and shallow water on the shore for a long time, and they like to dig a hole to bury themselves to rest, so the water level of the pool should not be too deep, and they should put more sediment to build their own holes to live. If conditions permit, some aquatic plants should also be planted in the pond as a quasi-isolation zone to reduce the chance of tortoises touching each other. The environment is good enough to prevent crocodiles and turtles from killing each other.

Practice has proved that where the above work is done well in management, the phenomenon of crocodile turtles killing each other is greatly reduced, and the survival rate can reach more than 98%.