How To Breed Painted Turtles? [Everything You Need To Know]

When you decide to get painted turtles for your own joy and happiness, you should be ready to take responsibilities of making all the stages of the life of these painted turtles to happen normally. An important part of these little creatures is the process of breeding.

Now, how to breed painted turtles? I’ll go over this in details in this article.

So, let’s get started!

Painted Turtle Breeding

Baby painted turtles are surely a treat to the eye. And turtle lovers do have unconditional love and fascination towards them. But for getting these baby painted turtles, you will need to provide the essential appropriate conditions to your turtles.

And to make it easier for you, I have listed all the necessary steps below that you will need to take for all certain conditions to make the painted turtles breed successfully.

To make the breeding of your painted turtles successful you will need to be sure regarding the factors that I have listed below:

1. Make sure that you have a male and a female turtle:

It is a very obvious factor that you will need to be sure about. However, having male and female turtles is not enough. These turtles need to be sexually matured enough. Otherwise, they will not be able to reproduce. Now, how do you know that your turtles are mature or not? How to identify the sexuality of your turtles? Just follow the guidelines below.

• Painted male turtles need to be at least three years old for being sexually mature and on the other hand, painted female turtles will need to be at least 5 years old. If the time duration of their age is not correct they will not be able to breed.
• Female painted turtles are larger in size compared to the male ones. Also, the males have longer claws on their front legs compared to the females.
• The bottom shape of the shell of females is flat and convex so that they can store eggs. On the other hand, the shape of the bottom shell of the males is flat and concave.

2. Cooling the painted turtles:

For successful breeding to occur, the painted turtles need to go through a cooling phase. Which in other words means that they will need to go into hibernation for successful breeding to occur. The breeding season of turtles is from March to June, which means the hibernation should be done during the winters which is from December to February.

Follow the following steps to create the perfect environment for your painted turtles.

• If you have been petting your painted turtles outdoors in a pond, then let nature do the work of sending them into hibernation. Just make sure that the water of the pond does not freeze, and also leave them alone during this period with some food available.
• If you are petting your painted turtles indoors, just enhance the conditions and set the temperature for them between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Shift your turtle to its regular habitat after the hibernating period is over.

3. Start feeding your turtles the essential vitamins for breeding:

During the breeding season, it is necessary that the turtles are fed plenty of the essential elements that will allow the breeding to happen successfully.

• The females need to get enough supplement of calcium and Vitamin D3 as they are the ones that will be carrying the eggs.
• To provide the painted turtles a healthy diet you can give them the following food: melon, bananas, strawberries, peas, tomatoes, vegetable scraps, cooked sweet potatoes, snails, earthworms, butter lettuce, and leaves.
• If you have been keeping painted turtles outdoors they will not need a supplement of vitamin D3 as they can produce by the help of absorption of sunlight. However, you need to make sure that you give the Vitamin D3 supplement to indoor painted turtles.

Let nature do its work, you just follow the steps below:

1. Leave your turtles alone:

There is nothing you can do to make your turtles mate. Just all you need to do is to put sexually mature painted turtles together in the habitat and whatever will happen, it will happen naturally. You provided them all the necessary conditions, that’s it. You will just need to give them enough space so that they can roam around without any difficulty.

2. Check the ratio of male to female turtles:

Be sure that you have a greater number of female painted turtles compared to male painted turtles. As for breeding, the males will compete with each other if there is too many of them in number. They may also fight for mating with a single female. Lastly, when you are sure that the turtles are done mating, it is better that you remove the males from the habitat.

As the males might bug the females who are already pregnant and this will cause unlikely results.

3. Create a proper nesting area for the females:

• The females require a proper area for them to lay the eggs. The area should consist of a proper shelter and moist soil. To make the female feel safe for laying and hiding eggs in the nesting area, the nesting area must consist of 6 to 12 inches of soft and lightly moist soil and some rocks and logs surrounding the area.
• Create the nesting area within the habitat of the painted turtles.
• The female painted turtles lay several clutches, and each clutches that they lay consists of 2 to 10 eggs. The time that they require to lay per clutch is 24 to 48 hours. And they will take a time of a few weeks between these clutches.

Final Verdicts:

To sum up, to bring out another generation from your beloved painted turtles, this guide has all the necessary information and guidelines for you to follow. I hope I have made this article regarding how to breed painted turtles both interesting and informative with immensely important guides and steps.