A Breeding Success with the Eastern Snake-necked Turtle, Chelodina longicollis
Russ Gurley, Director
Mike Shipp, Member
NATURAL HISTORY
Chelodina longicollis, the Eastern Snakeneck Turtle is found in eastern Australia from northern Queensland in the north to southern South Australia in the south. It is found chiefly in slow-flowing rivers, streams, swamps, and lagoons. (Ernst and Barbour, 1979).
C. longicollis is a classical-looking and graceful member of the Australian snake-neck turtle family. It has an oblong dark brown to black shell that measures up to 14 inches in large adults. The plastron is creamy yellow with dark seams. The snout and “face” are typical of the snake-necked turtles and consists of a stubby nose, bulging cheeks, and large, inquisitive eyes. Its skin is dark gray with a lighter gray to cream under the neck.
C. longicollis is an oppportunistic carnivorous feeder and will take fish, insects, snails, worms, insect larvae, and a variety of other living prey.
The Eastern Snake-necked Turtle breeds in the spring and early summer in the wild which corresponds to the fall and winter here in the United States. As with many aquatic species, there is a fairly elaborate courtship display in which the male swims up the back of the female’s shell toward the front of her shell. Once there, he grips the front of her shell with his claws and mating follows.
CAPTIVITY
A group of three males and one female C. longicollis was obtained and after a brief acclimation period, were set up in an eight-foot long oval stock tank. A substrate of 4 to 6" of washed medium grade sandblasting sand was placed into the tank and it was filled with approximately 250 gallons of fresh, dechlorinated water. Two 200 watt Ebo-Jaeger heaters were added and the water was maintained at 80° F (27° C). Three quarts of aquarium salt were mixed in. A small bed of water hyacinth was also added to the surface of the enclosure. We keep our snake-necked turtles in water that is soft and of a neutral pH.
Filtration is carried out via a flow-through system using a Supreme 500 pond kit with a pre-filter. The filter itself consists of an 18"w x 24"l x 10" deep tub mounted above the enclosure. The bottom of the tub is perforated with a soldering iron to allow maximum flow-through drainage. Lava is used as a biological layer and above the lava are two more layers - one an air-conditioning filter pad and the top layer consists of a thick sheet of polyester quilt batting. The outlet hose from the pre-filter sprays the water onto a bag filled with activated charcoal and the water flows down through this system and empties into the turtle tank. This simple, relatively inexpensive system has proven very effective for many varieties of aquatic turtles and is in use throughout our breeding facilities at The Turtle and Tortoise Preservation Group.
Turtles are fed 3-4 times a week. The bulk of their diet is the TTPG Aquatic Turtle Mix which is a blend of the best aquatic turtle diets on the market. They are also offered minnows, goldfish, and other small fish once a week which they consume greedily. We feed earthworms several times a week and occasionally throw crickets and superworms into the turtles’ enclosure to add variety to their diets. They aggressively feed on any of these. The snake-necked turtles are also fond of pink and fuzzy mice and will eat a large number of these if offered. We have chosen to feed mice only about once every 2-3 weeks.
HELPFUL HINTS
1. Care must be taken to keep the water in a snake-necked turtle enclosure extremely clean. Water degradation can lead to shell and skin infections and sores. As snake-necked turtles are relatively large turtles, they expel large amounts of waste. Care must be taken to clean filtration materials and carbon (activated charcoal) on a regular basis. Hint: Check a local water purification supply house ("Chemicals" in the yellow pages) for an inexpensive source for bulk activated charcoal.
2. We are finding at The Turtle and Tortoise Preservation Group that feeding a variety of prey items is probably much more important than previously thought. We feel that when turtles are fed a large quantity of a single food source, such as goldfish, when kept in cramped enclosures, they can quickly become obese. This obesity can lead to kidney and liver problems and premature death. We suggest using an enclosure that is as big as financially and physically possibly. Additions of driftwood, stone, or even large sections of PVC pipe can be used to promote exercise and exploration - keeping captive specimens alert and active, thus helping to reduce risks associated with overfeeding and crowding.
3. The snake-necked turtles will bask, but seem to prefer to rest on aquatic plants such as beds of water hyacinth or water lettuce rather than basking on rock piles or logs as most North American species tend to do.
4. Watch for aggression problems with the snake-necked turtles. These turtles are overly aggressive during feeding time. Injuries can be serious and sometimes even fatal if not spotted and corrected early. Damaged claws and feet can become infected easily in the warm, wet environment of the aquatic enclosure. Damaged body parts, including shell damage, can be treated with Silvadene cream - an antibiotic cream for burns available from your local pharmacist. The turtle will need to be dried out for an hour or so before treatment. A plastic tub with a lid works well for a treatment container. A quick preliminary wash over the infected spots with a swab of Betadine-Provodine seems to help (but not on open sores). After drying, gently rub the Silvadene cream onto the infected areas. Let the turtle remain in the "treatment tub" on a cloth towel for another 3 to 4 hours. After 2 or 3 treatments over a week-long period, all infected areas begin clearing up and reinfection has not been noticed. Putting several handfuls of aquarium salt per gallon of freshwater into enclosures will also help keep bacteria and fungus to a minimum.
PRE-BREEDING CONDITIONING:
We allow our snake-necked turtles to cool down during December, January, and February. We cool the water from 80° F to 65° F over this period, gradually decreasing the temperature about 2-3 degrees each week. Feedings are cut back to once a day and to once every 3 to 4 days by late January.
Beginning February 1st, we warm the water slowly back to 82° F and bring the daylight hours back up to 10 to 12 hours. At this time, we once again begin feeding them heavily on live fish, pink mice, and earthworms in addition to daily feedings of floating food.
Very soon, we begin seeing courtship behavior and mating and males begin frantically chasing females. It is during this time frame that males become increasingly aggressive towards each other and any smaller turtles in their enclosure.
BREEDING
We were fortunate in 1998 to discover six C. longicollis eggs in our breeding facility in Oklahoma City. The eggs were removed as the parents are overly tame and tend to crawl onto the laying site regularly in search of food or to get a better view of what is happening outside. As their ravenous appetites overwhelm them, we did not want to lose any eggs to a hungry parent.
The eggs were set up in a typical fashion. The small eggs (18mm W x 29 mm L) were buried with only a small portion of the top exposed. They were buried in a mixture of 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 sand, and 1/3 Metromix 350 potting soil. The mixture was dampened with purified water and placed on a shelf in the warmth of our facility. After an extremely hot day on the 95th day of incubation, the young emerged rapidly. We now feel that this hot week, in which the temperature reached the mid-90’s F, caused a premature hatching of the eggs. The natural incubation time is reported as 130 to 168 days (Ernst and Barbour, 1988). The hatchlings had an overly large yolk sac and we were dismayed that they were extremely lethargic and somewhat small. However, we left the babies in the incubator for another 3-4 days and then moved them to a small plastic tub with damp paper towel as a substrate. They were moved to another area that was warm (85° F), and checked daily for progress. After three agonizing weeks, the babies began stirring and we would notice their positions changing throughout the day as they moved to hide under folds in the damp paper towel. Within another three weeks, we moved them all to a 40 breeder tank (36”l x 18”w x 14”deep) and they immediately sunk to the bottom and hid among some of the submerged bark and aquatic plants.
The hatchlings have done well and are now thriving. They feed aggressively on water-logged pelleted food that sinks to the bottom of the tank. They will also take small redworms and pieces of fish. They have shown slow growth, but we choose to not push the turtles too quickly when growing in the first year.
We feel very fortunate to have obtained and had the opportunity to work with Chelodina longicollis. Most zoo collections and private individuals that are working with Australian fauna tend to be a little protective of their animals. We hope that with this breeding success and through publications such as Chelonian Journal, more breeders will be open to allowing their animals out and into new breeding situations. Through the Turtle and Tortoise Preservation Group, we hope to make this exciting species available to keepers and breeders across the United States.
REFERENCES
Ernst, C. H. and Barbour, R. W., 1989. Turtles of the World, USA: Smithsonian
Pritchard, Peter, 1979. The Encyclopedia of Turtles and Tortoises. TFH.
Green, Darren, 2000. Keeping Long-Necked Turtles, Chelodina longicollis, Australian Reptile Keeper Publications.
Green, Darren, Australian Snake-necked Turtle, Chelodina longicollis, Tortuga Gazette 28(5): 2-3, May 1992
Cann, John, 1998, Australian Freshwater Turtles, Beaumont Publishing.
