I've got some pippers!!!

Granted these are not ball pythons....but for me it is still pretty exciting! In addition to my BP's, I also have a small snapping turtle breeding project which about a year ago produced three albinos that I shared with you guys in previous threads. These little guys are my first pippers out of the 268 eggs that I have incubating right now. I am praying hard for some of them to hatch out as albinos. Thanks for looking!!!

http://i751.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps/photo46.jpg

http://i751.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps/photo47.jpg

http://i751.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps/photo48.jpg

That's soo cool! 268 eggs wow! I hope you do get some albinos

holy cow that's a lot of eggs!

Would you be willing to share some pics of the happy parents perhaps? I love seeing adult snappers :D

Good luck with the hatchlings. Has anyone determined if the albinism in common snappers is due to some simple mode of inheritance?

I'll try to get some pics of the parents... They are in a pretty good sized pond and I don't see a whole lot of them. The parents were all wild caught and I felt bad confining them to a (relatively) small enclosure...so I opted to build them a nice sized pond and let nature do most of the work.

As far as the albinism...I pretty much got lucky last year. I had suspected that I may have some het albino adults, but it was far from certain since they were wild caught. The female that laid the albinos last year laid 31 eggs for me this year, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that she mated with the same male as last year (or withheld some sperm from last year). Once my male albinos get up to size I will be mating them back to mom to see what happens.

One thing that I do know about the albinism in common snappers is that the established lines of albino do not appear to be compatible with each other....which is pretty fascinating. Not sure if it is like the lines of Axanthicism in BP's (VPI, SK, Joliff) or if there is some other explanation. The problem is that only a few people are working with snappers, so the amount of research is somewhat limited.

Oh fun!
That's a lot of eggs!
I'll love to see them out and about. Congrats

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

WOW, what are you gonna do with 268 snappers???

So very cool!

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Originally Posted by kdreptiles

WOW, what are you gonna do with 268 snappers???

So very cool!

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Well...I am hoping for some albinos, which I would probably sell a few of them and hold a few back for future breeding. As far as the normal babies...there isn't much of a market in the pet trade for them, so I will probably release them into the bogs where I caught their parents as soon as they get big enough to give them a fighting chance at survival.

Congratulations, I love seeing anything hatching! If you plan on releasing a large number I recommend doing it sooner rather than later. Tempting as it is to see them all thrive, releasing a slew of beefed up, young snappers into the wild could throw off the ecological balance. There's a reason they lay so many eggs!

You beat me to it, John. I would release them as quickly as possible so that they don't all stand a fighting chance. The reason that they lay so many eggs is because not all of them will make it, and baby snappers are likely an important summer food source in the area where you caught the parents.

Congrats on the babies! I would love to get some myself if I weren't overseas at the moment.

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Originally Posted by gsarchie

You beat me to it, John. I would release them as quickly as possible so that they don't all stand a fighting chance. The reason that they lay so many eggs is because not all of them will make it, and baby snappers are likely an important summer food source in the area where you caught the parents.

Congrats on the babies! I would love to get some myself if I weren't overseas at the moment.

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Life is just one big awesome circle.

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Originally Posted by Navy

Life is just one big awesome circle.

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I don't get it. Maybe I'm being a little slow?

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Originally Posted by John1982

Congratulations, I love seeing anything hatching! If you plan on releasing a large number I recommend doing it sooner rather than later. Tempting as it is to see them all thrive, releasing a slew of beefed up, young snappers into the wild could throw off the ecological balance. There's a reason they lay so many eggs!

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You are correct sir....you raise a good point. I probably wasn't clear enough in my post. I only plan on keeping them for a couple weeks to ensure they are eating....then i'll release them. I am certainly not gonna bulk them up for a few months....lol. And the place where I am releasing them is about 15,000 acres of privately owned cranberry bogs. I spread them out pretty good. The owners of the cranberry bogs love to have the snappers around because according to them..."they keep most of the birds out and away from the crop." I don't know how true this is, but if the farmer is happy and the turtles are happy, then I am happy. :D

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Originally Posted by gsarchie

I don't get it. Maybe I'm being a little slow?

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I think he was reinforcing your point about the importance of the circle of life.

UPDATE: I now have 46 snappers and 20 Eastern Redbelly Turtles (Pseudemys rubriventris) (AKA: Redbelly Cooters) out of the shell and healthy. :banana: They are still absorbing their yolk sacs and are still a couple days away from eating real food. Sadly...no albinos so far. Here are some updated pics....

http://i751.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps/photo49.jpg

http://i751.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps/photo50.jpg

Sweet! What do you do with the cooters?

I'll probably end up releasing them into my pond once they put on a little size. I actually got those eggs from a road-killed female, so I kinda feel proud that I was able to hatch them.

Very cool.