These are the river terrapin hatchlings that we are currently rearing at the Head-starting Facility on campus. Like I have mentioned previously, we purchase the river terrapin eggs from the egg collectors from Setiu and then incubated them (the eggs, NOT the collectors, hahhahah) in styrofoam boxes. At the end of the incubation period, the hatchlings will emerge from their eggs.
So upon emergence, I will take care of them until we release them in staggered ages. In fact, my Master’s project is to determine the best head-starting practices to to obtain their optimum growth rate. This includes experimenting with different foods, feeding rations, feeding frequencies, satiation amounts, etc.
So I feed with them with tilapia pellets — commercially-available specially-formulated pellets to culture tilapia fish. These pellets are available in bags of 20kg from Cargill. The tilapia pellets contain 34% protein, if I’m not mistaken, which is a little lower than the frog pellets (which contains 37% protein) that I had also tried out before, but statistics tests did not reveal significant differences in the growth of terrapins fed with both types of pellets.
I am still feeding them with tilapia pellets because they are cheaper (about RM 40 per bag, equivalent to about USD 11) and are more easily available.
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My nephew used to sing this song to his turtle; woo kui ah woo kui ah woo kui ahh!!
pelf: Does he still do it now?
They look so cute ! Do they get really big when they grow up ?
All the growth rate stuff went right over my head, so I’ll just say “Aww, they’re cute!”
pelf: Indeed, they are, especially when they’re still “babies”
Tilapia is a really good fish, so I can see why something that would make them tasty would be a good source of food for terrapins.
pelf: Exactly
Mm…tilapia. My kids and husband eat that!
Oh my gosh… coming in from the Postie Carnvial where the topic is food, I thought this post was headed in an entirely different direction. I’m so glad the turtles aren’t dinner! ;-)
LOL Amy . . . scary thing is that I thought the same thing! They are very cute.
They are adorable! I didn’t realize that’s what they ate. Interesting information on the difference in protein levels
Those turtles are adorable!
Are they being raised and released into the wild to replenish a slowly dying terrapin population? Or is this simply for educational purposes?
My daughter wants a turtle in the worst way. Those are really adorable. I’m starting to think maybe I should relent and let her have a couple.
Cute turtles… glad it wasn’t the main course!
That’s an amazing project to be involved in. There’s a lot of work being done here to help save the endangered Green Sea Turtle. Tilapia occur in our waters and there are tilapia farms springing up now that they’ve become so popular on the mainland.
Very impressed by what you’re doing here! (I think that sounds better than saying it’s far too complicated for me
)