Stone Money Turtle Breeding Technology, Hatchling Selection Methods and Precautions

The stone money turtle, also known as the yellow pond turtle or water turtle, is an animal many people may not yet be familiar with. It is in fact the yellow pond turtle (Mauremys mutica), also called the water turtle. Many places currently breed this animal, and captive-bred stone money turtles have many characteristics such as fast growth, a low rate of illness and high economic returns, making them popular with many people. So what are the breeding methods for this animal?

Stone Money Turtle Breeding Technology and Precautions

1. Breeding technology

1. Site selection. For a turtle breeding site, choose a place with abundant water and good water quality, soil with good water retention (such as clay loam or loam), convenient drainage and irrigation, a quiet environment and shelter from the wind while facing the sun, and avoid breeding turtles in places with major external influences such as traffic routes and factories. Turtles at different stages should be kept in different turtle ponds.

2. Feed preparation. The stone money turtle has abundant feed sources, so you can adapt to local conditions and plant banana trees and other green plants around the turtle pond, which can both provide shade and serve as plant feed for the turtles; where conditions allow, you can breed apple snails, whose meat is one of the meat feeds turtles prefer to eat. When the turtle breeding site is near a slaughterhouse, you can use animal offal and other by-products to feed the turtles. If compound feed is used to feed the turtles, you should fully prepare the raw materials as well as the equipment, production techniques and so on needed for processing.

3. Selecting turtle stock. The stone money turtle has strong disease resistance and is easy to raise, but improper introduction of stock can easily lead to unnecessary losses. The requirements for turtle stock or hatchlings are: no visible injuries or deformities upon visual inspection, vigorous activity and quick reactions; avoid long-distance transport to prevent crushing injuries.

2. Precautions

1. The stone money turtle is omnivorous and has a wide feeding range. Under artificial rearing conditions, you can feed it the meat of small fish, poultry offal and other animals, or mixed feed, but it needs a period of adaptation.

2. In daily management, frequent inspection and frequent record-keeping should be carried out. Inspection lets you understand the turtles' activity, growth and feeding conditions; do it once each morning and evening, randomly check the health of 2-3 turtles, and record air temperature, water temperature, activity, illness and feeding one by one.

How to Select Stone Money Turtle Hatchlings

1. Try as much as possible to buy stone money turtle hatchlings with a good physique; choose hatchlings that are lively and active, quick to react, sound in body shape and healthy. Overall, the body must be healthy, the body shape must be sound, and the shell shape must be symmetrical and attractive.

2. Then look at the arrangement of the vertebral scutes of the money turtle hatchling. All five vertebral scutes must be neatly arranged; only such money turtle hatchlings will not become deformed as they grow up.

3. After checking the shell shape, see whether the body is plump. So-called plumpness can actually be understood as whether it is robust. A plump money turtle shows that its body stores enough nutrients, which provides enough energy for the turtle to hibernate under the severe cold conditions of the natural world.

The Breeding Prospects of the Stone Money Turtle

1. Food value: the meat of the stone money turtle is tender, nutritious and delicious. Turtle meat and turtle blood are rich in protein, keratin, animal glue, vitamins, phosphorus, calcium, blood sugar and other elements essential to the human body, making them a high-grade nutritional tonic and an excellent food for preventing and treating diseases. Regularly eating turtle meat can enhance disease resistance, beautify the skin and prolong life.

2. Medicinal value: stone money turtle meat has effects such as nourishing yin and strengthening yang, removing dampness and detoxifying, preventing and fighting cancer, benefiting the liver and moistening the lungs, and nourishing yin and replenishing blood. It can treat consumptive fever with bone steaming, chronic cough with blood-streaked sputum, bloody dysentery, bleeding hemorrhoids, and pain of the muscles and bones, and has obvious therapeutic effects on venereal diseases, nephritis, stomach diseases and rare stubborn illnesses. Turtle blood can treat rectal prolapse and traumatic injuries, while turtle shell is the main raw material of Chinese patent medicines, such as the “Duanban Turtle Injection” used to treat pulmonary tuberculosis and as an adjuvant treatment for cancer.

3. Low breeding cost: the stone money turtle has a low breeding cost and is suitable for family breeding. At present, other industries are generally sluggish, and the method of raising money turtles at home is simple; you only need a balcony or room of a few sq m and to feed fish, shrimp, poultry offal, insects or melons and fruit once every 1-2 days. It can be said that all families are suitable for raising turtles.

Feeding Methods for the Stone Money Turtle

1. Newly hatched hatchlings: a newly hatched hatchling still carries a yolk sac, and within 2-3 days the hatchling's nutrition is supplied by this yolk sac, so there is no need to feed the hatchling; after 2-3 days, feed it small fish, shrimp, earthworms and a little rice and vegetables.

2. Juvenile and adult turtles: the main feeds are fish, shrimp, river snails, mussel meat, earthworms, as well as pumpkin, vegetable leaves and commercial feed. Feeding depends on the season, water temperature and the turtle's growth conditions. Generally the daily feeding amount is kept at about 5% of its own body weight, and you should stick to feeding at fixed times, in fixed amounts and of fixed quality so the turtles eat well and are full. During hibernation, money turtles do not eat, so there is no need to feed them.

Breeding stone money turtles is an emerging breeding industry that has risen in recent years, and it is also one of the relatively large breeding projects at present. The market prospects of the stone money turtle have always been very good, and both its medicinal value and its food value are quite high. However, the breeding industry does carry certain risks after all, so everyone must consider carefully before breeding.