Eggs in June

[Markw84]

I think is the latest I have had a sulcata lay eggs in the year. An older female I used to have that was imported directly from Niger, laid pretty regularly from Nov - April. I sold her several years ago now, and this is one of her babies I kept. Her 4th year of laying and 3rd clutch this year. All four years now, she has not laid until the beginning of March, and now another clutch in June.

Going to feed the turtles and fish with a cup of coffee this morning - I saw this in the tortoise area...




she had been digging around the past two days, so I expected it. This is the first time she picked this spot, but the plants have grown up and I had recently turned over all the soil around this center planter. I had dug entire this area out to about 30" deep and put in really good mix of amended soils to create a nesting area, but she had always chosen spots elsewhere until now... You can see how much open area is around the eggs with the chamber as they build it. Also a bit of poop in there just for good measure! I think they pretty commonly leave some for the babies as they hatch to get the old gut flora a jump start!




So into the incubator they go. Her clutch from March is due to hatch the end of next week.

 

[wellington]

Do you put them on just damp paper towels?
Glad to see she took to the spot you made for her.

 

[Markw84]

y

Do you put them on just damp paper towels?
Glad to see she took to the spot you made for her.

Yes, Barb. I have been using many layers of paper towel as substrate for my tortoise and turtle eggs for 25 years now. I can't think of any other breeders that do that, and I was reluctant to abandon vermiculite, but got tired of the ingestion and mess with the hatchlings. I transferred to damp paper towels as soon as they emerged from the egg, and just started thinking it would be much easier to just start the eggs that way too.

I use probably about 10 layers of paper towel. That holds moisture quite well, and I immediately found it much easier to see if it was drying out too much with the paper towels. The moisture content is much more important with turtle eggs that can dry out and collapse quickly without proper moisture. And if an egg was not fertile, or "bad" it would show quite easily as the paper towel around a bad egg would start to discolor.

I found it worked very well for me. Excellent hatch rates. With my older female sulcata, (I had for years when I was hatching lots of sulcatas and experimenting with pyramiding issues), it was extremely rare to ever have an egg that did not hatch. So, as much as everything I read shows everyone uses: mostly vermiculite, some hatchrite, a few the dirt from where the eggs were laid - I really like the paper towels, and have stayed with it.

My dilemma is now when I get my first platynota eggs! I always like starting out with what I know works and copy what the successful people are doing before using a different technique. But I like everything I've experienced using paper towels. I think I will probably split the eggs into two groups and hedge the bet!!

Since the thread is about eggs in June... Here is a clutch I got yesterday from one of my Suwanee Cooters. June is the peak of egg laying for all the aquatic turtles!

This gal is a granddaughter of my oldest Suwanee. About 14 years old now and about 15". This is probably the favorite location for the cooters to lay in my pond area. However, this is the first time I saw one laying in the morning. Always evening layers. Friday did get to 106° so maybe she knew what she was doing. And picked a spot under a shade sail to dig!





They always release a good deal of water (pee) when they begin to cover the nest and really work it into some dirt to create a pretty big mud plug to seal the top of the nest. she's just starting to do that in the picture above.

This nest was 17 eggs. Pretty normal for my mid-sized Suwanees



when I catch a nest within the first 24 hours, I don't have to worry at all about turning the eggs. I wash them all off and put them on the paper towel layers. I put in a temperature and humidity sensor, and they go in the incubator. They'll hatch in about 58 days...

 

[Yvonne G]

The leopard batch I showed a few days ago were set up on paper towels.

 

[Markw84]

The leopard batch I showed a few days ago were set up on paper towels.

I saw that, but though that was more of a brooder chamber as they were starting to hatch. So - do you also use paper towels?

 

[Yvonne G]

Occasionally. Like you, I like that I can see it's getting dry. . . plus, it's clean.

 

[wellington]

I'm liking the paper towel idea. Mainly because I have a very hard time trying to figure out if the vermiculite is damp or not. Even trying to feel if it's damp its very hard.

 

[Yvonne G]

Some of my species I cover the eggs. In those cases, I use vermiculite.