Key Technical Points for Spring Greenhouse Farming of Soft-Shelled Turtles

    Spring is both a season of transitional climate change and the beginning of a new farming cycle for soft-shelled turtles, so spring management in plastic greenhouse turtle farming is particularly important. The main spring management technical tasks include the following aspects:

  I. Inspection and Repair of Plastic Greenhouses

  Spring temperatures are unstable, so plastic greenhouses must be checked frequently, damaged areas repaired promptly, and the stability of joints at connection points carefully attended to.

  II. Rearing of Juvenile Soft-Shelled Turtles

  In February and March, hatchlings and juveniles should be selected at the appropriate time and divided into large, medium and small size groups for separate pond rearing to avoid biting among them. At the same time, in conjunction with the sorting of hatchlings and juveniles into separate ponds, the pond water should be completely replaced and debris at the bottom of the pond cleared away.

  III. Rearing of Adult Soft-Shelled Turtles

  In April, the bottom soil of adult turtle ponds should be cleaned up, new sand or soft mud added, and then disinfection carried out. Disinfection should use the dry method of pond clearing with quicklime, leaving the pond water at a depth of 5-10 cm. The amount of quicklime used is 60-75 kg per mu; after slaking into a slurry, it is splashed over the entire pond, and during splashing it is best to use a mud rake to rake while splashing. After about 7 days, once the efficacy of the lime has dissipated, juvenile soft-shelled turtles can be stocked.

  Before stocking, juvenile soft-shelled turtles should be disinfected by medicated soaking in a 2.5% salt solution at a water temperature of 10-32°C for 10-20 minutes, which can kill parasitic bell animalcules, Epistylis, leeches and other organisms on the body surface. The water temperature for stocking should be stably above 20°C, with the time in mid-to-late April or early May; the stocking density is best at 6-8 juvenile turtles per square meter, which can reduce intermediate sorting steps and minimize disturbance to adult turtle growth. Newly stocked turtles have a poor appetite for about one week, so the initial amount of artificial compound feed should be 0.5-1% of body weight (calculated on a dry matter basis, which varies); afterward, as the turtles' sense of tension disappears, the feeding amount can be increased to 2% of body weight, fed once each in the morning and afternoon, following a fixed total feeding schedule. The rearing and management work for soft-shelled turtles is considerable, but the most important is water quality management: besides maintaining the water temperature at 25-35°C, one should also observe the water color and transparency. The water color is best when oily green or dark green, and a transparency of 20-30 cm is most ideal.

  IV. Management of Brood Soft-Shelled Turtles

  When both the air temperature and water temperature rise to around 20°C, feeding should begin for brood soft-shelled turtles emerging from hibernation, using as much as possible fresh fish and shelled snails and mussels that are easy to digest and favored as food. After the new brood turtles recover from hibernation, quicklime should be scattered once every 10-15 days (at 10-15 g per cubic meter of water), which can increase the calcium content in the water, disinfect, prevent disease and control water quality, keeping the pond water transparency at around 30 cm.

  Under warm climate conditions, brood soft-shelled turtles will begin laying eggs in late May. Therefore, in late spring, weeds in the egg-laying site should be removed early, the sand bed of the egg-laying site repaired and loosened, new river sand added, and the surrounding comprehensive environmental conditions inspected and maintained.