Hi, Looking for some fedback to a couple questions. 1) My baby snappers always have dead skin coming off them. Is this normal or indicitive of a problem? 2) I was wondering if there is a difference between the turtle "chalk" you get at the pet store and regular white chalk (put it in the tank, disolves slowly prevents soft shell, etc....).
thanks
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Baby snappers
telula
Jan 09, 2004 11:00 AM
Replies (2)
HerpHelmz
Jan 09, 2004 03:18 PM
I can help you with the dead skin problem.
Out of all of the Common Snapping Turtles I have had this has occured in all of them. I wouldn't count it as a problem. The only problem it would cause was I would have to clean the tank more often. As for the chalk, I have never heard of chalk to make soft shell go slower. Soft-Shell occurs in every young turtle from ages 1 to like 3, I've never seen/had/heard of a young turtle that didn't have a Soft-Shell. All you can do(that I know of)is give it calcium. If this is for a Snapping Turtle, forget it. All baby Snapping Turtles have a Soft-Shell for a while, I had a hatchling(1 month old)had a real Soft-Shell and within 1 year it grew 3 or 4 inches and lost the Soft-Shell, Snappers are extremely hardy turtles, they will literally eat anything you throw to them. Don't worry about Soft-Shell for Snappers or dead skin.
Michael Fedzen
chrysemys
Jan 14, 2004 03:45 PM
Hey,
The little chalk lookin turtles that you can get at petstores are a complete waste of money.
About the shedding... Shedding is normal, but unreasonable amounts is not. All the snappers I had go through periods of shedding, it is just from growing. If they are shedding all the time, then thats a sign of over feeding. It is very easy to overfeed a snapper since they seem to have a endless appatite. They will gorge themselves, so pay attention on how much food he/she is getting. For hatchlings, I tried to do 2 feedings a day but make those feedings small. Then when they get bigger up into the 6-10in range you can easily go every other day, feeding them a nice sized meal.
Chris
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Hey mine name is Chris and I currently have 1.0 Midland Painted, 1.0 YBS, 1.1 Leopard geckos, 1.0 Bearded Dragon
