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Ramsey

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You can candle tortoise eggs and there are certainly signs like "chalking", color changes from whitish or yellowish to orange-ish or red-ish, and sometime blood vessels can be seen later in the process. Later in the term, the whole egg looks solid, but is that a baby tortoise, or is it rotten inside? The problem is that it is just not always clear with tortoises. Certainly not to me, and others have said the same. Sometimes you candle and think there is nothing, and then a baby hatches out of it a month or two later. Or vice versa. I think most of us tortoise people just incubate them all and leave them alone until they hatch or rot.

More questions :)

I recall reading that the incubation period varies widely. The numbers 3-6 months come to memory for leopards. Whatever the numbers are, the question is: why such a wide range?

Thanks
 

Tom

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More questions :)

I recall reading that the incubation period varies widely. The numbers 3-6 months come to memory for leopards. Whatever the numbers are, the question is: why such a wide range?

Thanks
Sulcatas are usually around 90 days at 88 degrees. Leopards are usually around 110 days. SA leopards require a cooling period to break the diapause. Without this cooling period, which simulates winter, the eggs will not develop. After a sufficient and correctly done cooling period, SA leopard eggs also take about 110 days to incubate. Say an SA leopard lays a clutch in March of 2016. Those eggs will sit in the ground and they will not develop even though the coming summer temps are warm enough to incubate them. Those eggs must undergo a sufficient winter cooling period. Here in SoCal, those eggs would sit in the ground until summer of 2017. Only in the heat of summer is the ground consistently warm enough to incubate them. So those March 2016 eggs wouldn't hatch until September or October of 2017. It doesn't matter when the eggs are laid. They must go through a winter, and then they will begin to incubate the following summer. Its amazing to me that they don't rot over all that time. If I dug them up in March 2016, cooled them and then artificially incubated them, I could have babies as early as August of 2016. The cooling process is roughly two months, then add the 110 days of incubation.
 

Ramsey

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Sulcatas are usually around 90 days at 88 degrees. Leopards are usually around 110 days. SA leopards require a cooling period to break the diapause. Without this cooling period, which simulates winter, the eggs will not develop. After a sufficient and correctly done cooling period, SA leopard eggs also take about 110 days to incubate. Say an SA leopard lays a clutch in March of 2016. Those eggs will sit in the ground and they will not develop even though the coming summer temps are warm enough to incubate them. Those eggs must undergo a sufficient winter cooling period. Here in SoCal, those eggs would sit in the ground until summer of 2017. Only in the heat of summer is the ground consistently warm enough to incubate them. So those March 2016 eggs wouldn't hatch until September or October of 2017. It doesn't matter when the eggs are laid. They must go through a winter, and then they will begin to incubate the following summer. Its amazing to me that they don't rot over all that time. If I dug them up in March 2016, cooled them and then artificially incubated them, I could have babies as early as August of 2016. The cooling process is roughly two months, then add the 110 days of incubation.

Nice explanation. So the disparity in hatch times I keep reading about is driven by diapause.
 

Tom

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Nice explanation. So the disparity in hatch times I keep reading about is driven by diapause.

In some cases yes, but in other cases, some eggs will just sit for a longer time than usual. Theories as to why have been proposed, but I know of no definitive answer. There is a known "normal" for each species, but some babies hatch early or late for no apparent reason. Some clutches all hatch within a few days of each other, and other clutches spread out their hatch dates over 5-6 weeks. They are all dug up at the same time, all go into the same incubation box, and into the incubator all at the same time in the same box. I have no explanation for why we see such an inconsistent variety of hatch times.
 

Tom

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Saturday morning update:
I remove the hatchlings from their incubation box, soak them, and move them into a brooder box as soon as they leave the egg under their own power. Last night this little one was still sitting in its egg. This pic is from first thing this morning:
IMG_3368.JPG


Then the customary first soak:
IMG_3370.JPG


And then the brooder box. First on the menu is the customary egg shell, a tender young grape leaf, some freshly sprouted broadleaf plantain, a lavatera flower and a tiny bit of freshly sprouted grass:
IMG_3373.JPG
 

Anyfoot

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Nice, so there's definitely 5 up to now. If I had to guess I would say there is only one egg that looks like a dud. 2nd down on right, it doesn't look as white, but it could just be the photo.
Do you bathe them even if the yolk isn't absorbed?
 

Tom

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Nice, so there's definitely 5 up to now. If I had to guess I would say there is only one egg that looks like a dud. 2nd down on right, it doesn't look as white, but it could just be the photo.
Do you bathe them even if the yolk isn't absorbed?
Time will tell about that egg… Out of a first year mom, I'm pretty happy even if it stays at 5 of 9. More would just be icing on the cake! :D

As soon as they leave their egg I rinse them in warm tap water to get any vermiculite pieces off of them, and then plop them in a soak. If a baby has a large yolk sac where they are tipping on to their face while balancing on it, I keep the water very shallow. That sort of yolk sac is usually absorbed within 24 hours of being moved to the brooder box.

I use damp paper towels for the first day or two, and then switch to grape leaves or large plantago leaves for substrate after that. They usually stay in these brooder boxes for 7-10 days before being moved into their first enclosure. During those 7-10 days in that warm small space, they eat like little pigs. This is when I introduce them to every food under the sun. They get different food items every day during this time.
 

diamondbp

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@Tom do you find the PP babies emerge faster out of the egg than babcocki babies? My babcocki babies took their time to full emerge but my PP mixed babies emerge faster, almost like sulcata babies, but not quite as fast.
 

Tom

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Only 3 of them have 3 dots on the first vertebral scutes, any reason?

Do you keep your incubator dark Tom, or do you let light in. I put a cover over it to keep the eggs in the dark. But this also means the neonates are in the dark in brooder.

Normal variation with this genetic line.

My incubator is a large stand up commercial freezer that I gutted. I pulled the compressor and all that stuff out and I put a RHP on the ceiling and floor with a computer fan blowing across each one to make a circular air current inside. The RHPs are controlled by a Helix Controls digital proportional thermostat. So it is dark in there unless I open the door to check on the eggs or pipping hatchlings.

Once I move them out of the incubator and into their brooder boxes, they go into a large bird brooder box that has a clear front. I don't have any direct lighting in there, but the new hatchlings get plenty of ambient light during the day and darkness at night.
 

Tom

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More pips from another clutch!
1zl4rxx.jpg



Why is this so significant? Different female than the first pics. Different male too. I have 3 females and two males. Females are Crooked Scute, V-Neck and Hamburger. Males are Mr. Blue and Mr. Green. They have to live separately due the the males assertiveness. The babies at the start of this thread are from V-Neck and Mr. Blue. The babies hatching in this post are from Crooked Scute and Mr. Green. This means both males are good-to-go and know how to do the deed. I've got two late season clutches from Hamburger that I'm still waiting on to see if she's also up and running now. Also have one more clutch from V-Neck and Crooked Scute too. Each female laid 8 clutches from March to November last year. You read that right. 24 clutches from 3 females. Clutch size ranged from 8 to 15 eggs. None of the previous 18 clutches hatched, but it appears that the remaining 6 clutches will hatch. I'm very egg-cited to see what this year's clutches bring.
 
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