Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I caught a new common snapper today and put it in with my longtime pet snapper and almost immediately they started having sex.. Whn should I expect eggs? I keep her in a 60 gallon hex with no land, so i need to know when to move her to a pen outside..

thanks guys,

james hughes

Hi James,
just because they 'shacked up' doesn't necessarily mean that there will be eggs. Turtles are kind of like people when it comes to 'mating', sometimes they do it just for the heck of it. However, keep an eye out and be prepaired! How big is your female? If she's a full size adult, she needs to be in something larger than a 60 gallon! If the weather is nice outside, you really should think about building her and her boyfriend an outside enclosure. Anyway, expect eggs in about a month. It should be easy to tell when she's gravid, you'll be able to feel the eggs if you place your fingers between her plastron and rear leg. ~Christy

Thanks for the info! The female is about 8 inches long and i don't know how much she weighs. She's pretty fat though, because I feed her chicken all the time. I have had her for one year now. i usually keep a smaller snapper (about 3 inches) in her tank to keep her company, but they never did anything. I just thought she might lay eggs because of it being that time of the year, then again it might just be because she hasn't had any in a year...

Take the 3" snapper out immediately! It will only take one bite for her the take the little turtle's head off! Snappers really don't care much for company and only come together for mating, so don't worry about her getting lonely. Best of luck. ~Christy