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Baby Reeves


DonnaM

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I noticed a certain pet shop on Moorhouse Ave here in ChCh has a baby reeves for sale....usual price of $299. Thought I'd mention it in case someone was looking....Not a financial option for me at the mo or I'd have grabbed it! :lol:

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  • 1 month later...
2 in palmy animates - from hot house turtles id be tempted to buy them if it wasnt rumourd (sp) they only produce/sell males

This is not true and here is why ....

His incubator is set on 27 - 29oC and produces a mix of Males and Females. I know this as he has held some back in the past seasons and have grown them up for breeding. If anything he has ended up with more females!! His incubator is also affected by the air temp outside of it, so does fluctuate. He runs an air-conditioner 24/7 in the room with the incubator, heating in winter and cooling in summer. This does help the incubator from getting to hot / cold, but does still have a 2 to 3 degree fluctuation. From information that I have read the temps that we incubate at shoud give a mix of sexes with the Red-ears and Reeve's. However I have not experimented as to what temp produces more females or males. More work is done worldwide with Red-ears as they are more abbundent and are very easy to incubate.

.

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This is a quote from Kerry Hewitt from the National aquarium in Napier in reference to the breeding of Reeves Turtles in reply to an email I sent. " You are correct in thinking temperature can affect the sex determination in reptiles but there are a few reptiles which this does not apply and the sex determination is more genetic than environmental, the reeves turtles are one of these so you will find a mix of sexes from one clutch of eggs. For sexing the males have a longer tail and the cloaca is sited further from the body.

The reeves being supplied from the breeder in Napier are actually from a small population of semi related reeves he has, but is unable to determine the actual genealogy of the babies being sent out, He does have several reeves which are of unrepresented gene stock which he is keeping separate and using for breeding in conjunction with the aquarium and others to maintain a strong and healthy gene pool to work with, there is a stud book being kept to ensure the right animals are being breed together.

If this gene pool was introduced in to the public area we would lose the ability to maintain an accurate record and risk breeding related problems."

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Dougstark.

To answer your question posted in the Turtle Hybrid Thread:

What computerbabe said about the way in which things are setup here is correct. I have (up until yesterday when I received my new incubator from Germany) only one incubator. This is set at 28 - 30oC, but is influenced by the temperature around it, so fluctuates a couple of degrees each side of the set temps. We have controlled this as best we can with the aid of an air conditioning unit in the incubating / raising room. So depending on the time of the year that we get eggs come depend on the sex ratios. From what we have kept back to grow on ourselves I found the male / female ratio about 50/50. If we were to incubate solely for Males I would have to wait for an extra month for Turtles to hatch, and I don't have the time or patience for this, let alone the space in the incubator.

Now getting on the other part of the question:

All Turtle species kept in New Zealand are Temperature Sex Determined (TSD) with the Snake-necks being the only exception. They are genetically sexed, so offspring's sex are not effected by temperatures.

The Breeding programs of different Asian species (including Reeve's Turtles) between some Containment Facilities in NZ is a complicated subject in itself, and would take many hours of explaining it all. To cut along story short however, there has been success in the past two years with the Reeve's Turtle, the offspring are mixed around amongst the facilities involved to grow on and breed, and these Turtles or offspring will never be made available to purchase. They will remain as an "insurance policy" to make sure that the species never disappears all together, and that the gene pool of the NZ collection is as diverse as we can make it.

Cheers

Chris

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Thats awesome, its great to see people thinking long-term about the preservation of species here, if only people would do the same with tortoises!!

I'd love a reeves, I didn't realise they stayed small until recently, so might have to look at setting up a tank for one or two of them.

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