A Beginner’s Guide to Avoiding Pitfalls When Buying Turtles: 4 Moves to Expose Price Traps

For beginners, the “waters” of the turtle market are too deep, and a moment’s carelessness can lead to a “crash and burn.”Not to mention beginners, even “battle-hardened”veterans inevitably face times where they “capsize in a gutter.”

Since the Chinese government has not yet intervened to regulate the turtle market, turtle prices are subject to little state control. There are also no clear written regulations marking prices; therefore, the prices of valuable turtles are not set in stone.

So, how can we refuse to be deceived? First, we must start from the following 4 aspects:

4 Aspects to Avoid Being Deceived

Although you are not required to memorize all turtle species field guides, you must have a basic understanding of the breeds and quality of most mainstream valuable turtles. The purpose is to prevent unscrupulous merchants from passing off fakes as the real thing. For turtles with very similar appearances, such as Eastern Painted Turtles and Western Painted Turtles, or Black-necked Pond Turtles and Black Hybrids, you must be able to distinguish them clearly.

Generally speaking, the price of breeder turtles is higher than that of commodity turtles. Breeder turtles are turtles that have undergone professional wild-simulated cultivation and are truly capable of breeding. Commodity turtles, on the other hand, are meat turtles raised using methods like heating or increased feeding to make them grow quickly, in order to supply hotels and tea houses for consumption. The difference in economic value between the two is obvious at a glance; however, unscrupulous merchants love to sell commodity turtles at breeder turtle prices to fool “newbies.”

The price of turtles with a higher generation tier is higher than that of turtles with a lower generation tier. Genetic inheritance in turtles is inversely proportional to the number of generations. The closer the generation is to the original generation (i.e., wild breeder turtles), the higher its inheritance of original genes, and the higher the purity and quality of the turtle. Conversely, the further the generation is from the original generation, the fewer original genes it inherits, and the lower the purity and quality of the turtle.

Try to choose merchants with professional breeding technology when buying turtles. Only by using professional and standardized breeding techniques can the quality of valuable turtles be guaranteed. If there is no professional or standardized breeding technology, random feeding or abuse of drugs will cause certain effects on the turtle’s appearance. Therefore, when communicating with the merchant, you can properly exchange some turtle raising experiences to “test the waters.” For those merchants who hem and haw or even know nothing when asked, you must be careful at this point; the turtles they sell are very likely stolen.

Of course, these above 4 points are just “the tip of the iceberg”; merchants capable of using such “low-down” tricks are also merely second-rate “petty scoundrels.”