I've had Pickles since 1996, since she was about 20 months old, still a juvenile. I ended her solitary life in 2008 when Bob came along, another young juvenile. Last year they started doing the deed and Pickles laid 10 eggs from September to February. The first 4 eggs were infertile, but others are coming out nice with three hatched naturally and another three still in the ground, some 200+ days after they were nested. I'm pretty amazed. They're real busy working on next years babies. I may keep one, but the others are going to friends with secured gardens, people I trust, in six months and after they're well started.

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Great looking torts!

Gorgeous babies.

Definitely cute! Great job!

Pickle and Bob have produced some very nice baby hardtops!

Thanks a lot!

They're tons of fun to watch. We have another 2 eggs in the ground that should hatch any day now. All the babies incubated over 200 days, the first one 'up' incubated exactly 220 days. I have a few other hobbies, too, and posted the whole thing to this orchid forum: [url=http://forum.theorchidsource.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/303745/Born_on_the_4th_of_July.html#Post303745
]babies[/url]

It's linked to the story of when Pickles was lost 51 days. Over the years a few people have written me saying it gave them hope when their charge was missing. Hopefully you'll never know how bad that feels. Here's Mama Pickles just last month.

   

(08-04-2012 05:06 PM)Redstrike Wrote:  Pickle and Bob have produced some very nice baby hardtops!

Thanks! I got Bob after Pickles was lost and amazingly recovered 51 days later. You can read about the ordeal linked to this url (yep, I grow orchids, too!):

[url=http://forum.theorchidsource.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/303745/Born_on_the_4th_of_July.html#Post303745
]lost tortoise[/url]