Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone that has any of the Common Musks,Muds, Keeled, Stripe Neck, 3 Stripped, etc, I have all of these and All of them spend Days and weeks on my Soil and land parts of the enclosures without eating. I would reccommend adding LAND AND SOIL to a Third or Half of their enclosures - When they want to eat they will head back to the water. I believe it is important to have a Land Base for all of the above and ETC.
Cheers

I have one of those waterland tubs that has about 2/3rds water and 1/3rd land. I have one musk that stays in the land area because he constantly gets chased/bitten by a 27 yr old Ea mud. Other than that the only time they go in the land area is after it rains and only for a short time.

Rick, Interesting, My three striped and Common Musks have been buried for weeks in the soil and hiding under bark, seen one this Am poking its head up through the soil, It is an 8 foot long pond with 2 ft of it soil. Still wondering how much time in the wild they spend on land...

I have one musk that stays in the land area because he constantly gets chased/bitten by a 27 yr old Ea mud.

And you still keep them together???

The only time my kinosternids stay on land is when they are being bullied. If you have multiple turtles together I guarentee the ones on land are more then likely being bullied & trying to stay out of the agrressors way. Yes they do come on land to bury themselves occasionally if the soil is damp,otherwise mine stay in water & if I dry dock them for a fwew hrs. they get antsy.

I have a 5 yr old stinkpot and he spends hours a day hanging out on a branch that I have a hot light over, just basking away. He sleeps there so soundly sometimes he doesn't even notice me moving things around the tank.

I absolutely agree! Most of these species should be kept solitarily (at least with no same-species individuals) or they will end up bullying or being bullied. The submissive ones will disappear on land for extended periods of time. For sure not a nice way to spend your life!
True, also, that some or the species will bask (many don't) and they very occasionally bury themselves on landm - but I've only rarely seen that in my animals (which are being kept solitarily and are producing eggs like laying hens).

Ok I will say if the air is humid the odoratus will come on land the leucostums are good crawlers too. but for the most part the monirs,carinatus,peltifers,flavescens, & salvinii are water dwellers. Only the males bully each other but since the males have been seperated no one really visits land much. There is no rule to this really as animals are like people what yours does mine might not. I know I've found odoratus on land where I'm from but these were usually females for the most part the odoratus stay in the shallows from wild ones I've seen. the irony is 2 odoratus I have were from eggs dug up at a construction site last yr. that someone hatched & gave to me.

So you don't keep same species together? When and how do you breed them? How do you keep your adults?

No, I don't. I do keep single individuals of different species together, though. My loggerhead females fought really hard and the (small) male was so repressed that he wouldn't mate and in the end nearly lost his nose. He does mate well now that he's being kept on his own and only rarely introduced to one of the females! My baurii females fought when they were together, but the male is all right to live with one of them, on an alternating basis. He makes love, not war.
I keep them (1 minor, 1 baurii) in simple 32x16in glass aquaria with a 8in water level, some flower pots to hide, an egg-laying area (6x16x4inches lxwxh) filled with humid sand and with a small basking lamp, and good filtration. Food is dry cat food and duck pellets, and homemade turtle jelly (shrimps, fish, beef heart, some vegetables). No heating for these species (I'm in The Netherlands where winter room temps drop to about 65F), lighting is a fluorescent tube and the 25W bulb over the land area, 12-14 hours a day in summer, 6-8 in winter.
Mating takes place in autumn, primarily, and egg laying starts between Dec-Feb and lasts until July, with one clutch of 2-5 eggs roughly every 1.5 months. Incubation is easy. These 4 females gave me about 50 hatchings this year alone!

Hope this helps.