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Executive summary October, 2026   The tables and figures in this section summarize our key findings. Our recommendations for inducing turtles are based on this data. The recommendations can be found under the web-site heading “PIM instructional.” PIM instructional consists of a PDF that outlines our suggestions for a successful…

The background of our research During a visit to John Legler’s lab at the University of Utah in 1977 we met a young graduate student named Jim Berry. I explained to Jim that we liked to keep hatchling turtles for a year or so, release them, and then replace them…

Establishing a pattern for working with red eared sliders In the spring of 2008 we found ourselves at the Concordia Turtle Farm in Wildsville, Louisiana. Concordia is the largest turtle farm in the United States. It’s owned by the Evans family. They were very supportive of our goals and gave…

Determining the techniques we would use Before we could begin to experiment with the different drugs that could induce oviposition we had to design a standard method of giving injections, a standard site for those injections and a consistent environment to contain the turtles. Environmental concerns included the possible need…

Possible injection sites We had learned from earlier work that intraperitoneal injections were difficult to do. They were fraught with potential errors like injecting the drug into a solid organ, bowel or egg follicle. Drug absorption from the peritoneal cavity is very rapid because of the large surface area and,…

Designing the best environment for oviposition Designing the best environment for oviposition   We had learned in previous years how important it was to shield induced turtles from being frightened by movements around them. We used to suspend them over a wet towel in a closed closet to achieve this…

Early work with various drugs and drug combinations   The tables below show how poor the results were using oxytocin alone (Remember that “success” for us means that the turtle laid all its eggs after one injection).  We pooled the intraperitoneal and subq results in the first table because they…

Combinations of drugs we used The dramatic improvement in success shown in the table below (when we combined subq oxytocin and Lutalyse) led to a long series of experiments to determine the best proportions of each drug. A common side effect of Lutalyse is diarrhea. Because the incidence of diarrhea…

Discovering the importance of prostaglandin F2 alpha (PGF-2) Carbetocin is a long acting analogue of oxytocin. It was difficult to obtain at the time we used it but it was worth the effort because we had an expectation that it would be much more effective than oxytocin. As the table…

Some ideas that did not work Since the biochemical complexities of reptilian reproduction are poorly understood we decided to experiment with a few unlikely drugs to induce egg laying because it is known that different species of lizards use similar hormones/prostaglandins in different ways (Guillette et al. 1992) and that…