Turtles for pets must have adult supervision. Hands must be washed with soap and water after handling turtles, equipment, food, water and cleaning to avoid salmonella, which is a possibility with all turtles. The only good snapping turtle is a dead one, all other turtles will make good pets. 

Painted Turtles and Red Sliders are a little aggressive towards each other, Mississippi Map Turtles seem to be a little more tolerant towards each other. Although, I hatched four Painted Turtles and purchased three Mississippi Map Turtles of the same size and they all seem to be getting along just fine. 

I observed a Painted Turtle laying her eggs. I marked her nest, when I was equipped I retrieved the eggs and brought them home and incubated them. 

The process goes like this: Wear latex gloves, gently uncover the eggs, mark the top of the eggs and always keep the eggs in the same position or they will drown in the shell. I took a bucket and put some of the dirt that the eggs were hatched in and some that was covering them, and brought them home, placed them on top of an aquarium whose water was heated to 78 degrees. Exactly 60 days later from the date they were laid, they started to hatch. Three of them made it out okay but the fourth one I helped (I shouldn’t have). That one was never right and did not make it. 

When the turtles were first hatched, I submerged them momentarily in water to rinse them off and to be sure they were hydrated. I then placed them in a glass pan, had one end elevated and just enough water on the other end so they could completely submerge or crawl out on the dry. 

Use a thermometer to set the temperature of the water in the pan the same as they were hatched with. I used a heat lamp to maintain temperature.