2018 Incubation Experiment

[Tom]

My thoughts are not as much about acidity but the chelating effects of humic substances. Certainly the insides of a tortoise are organic material. How about the mucus deposited with tortoise eggs whlie laying? Or the observation that most nests I've dug up contain some fecal matter the mother seems to deposit in the chamber? All could contribute to chelation and calcium mobilization as well as establishing microbes for gut flora when the hatchlings emerge. How much we change that balance when we artificially incubate is worth investigating.

In line with the quoted paragraph, I've been having poor hatch rates for my SA leopards. The breeder I bought them from also reported poor hatch rates with artificial incubation, and he let them incubate naturally in the ground. He reports "incubation" times of up to 18 months, because the eggs must undergo diapause and can't begin to develop until the summer heat kicks in after a winter underground. This year, I intend to leave all the eggs in the ground and cover each nest with an open mesh cage so that predators can't get to the eggs, and other females can't dig them up or disturb them to deposit their own eggs. Next spring, I will dig them all up and artificially incubate them. Best of both worlds. I'll leave a nest or two in the ground just out of curiosity.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

What are you guys doing for your Manouria? What incubation media? What are the results? Tell me more!!!

I'm using this type of peat moss because it is what I could find. I intend to duplicate this experiment with the next clutch using long fibered sphagnum moss. Any thoughts? Any tips for how to improve the quality of the experiment?

Both Kelly and myself following his practice to some extent have posted what we do here on TFO. My post is https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/live-naked-people.126107/page-17#post-1461695 as a guide to most Mep posts, and others in the thread "live Naked People". Kelly can chime in as it suits him.

 

[CarolM]

According to the presenter, yes.

And given what we just learned from @HermanniChris and his sanding of the egg shell, I would love to go to South Africa where Chersina occur and test the soil where they lay for acidity. I wonder if we could get @CarolM or @JeannineD to help us with that. We have soil test kits here in the states. I wonder if they have them available in the RSA?

I could look for you guys. Just give me a brand name or two and i will take a look for you.

 

[Tom]

I could look for you guys. Just give me a brand name or two and i will take a look for you.

At nurseries and garden centers they have soil test kits for people to test their soil parameters. We also have a service where samples can be sent in to a lab for testing for a small fee. Do they do that there? I would imagine the farmers would all know about this. Know any farmers?

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

Live Naked People post 240
"One experiment that my sister consulted on (she works with medical isotopes for use in human health therapies and assured me I would not glow if I did this), but the vets at the Philly Zoo would not sign off on, was to incubate eggs side by side of pancake tortoises, one set that had a night time drop and another that did not. The incubators would be in larger enclosures with gas concentration monitors. The oxygen would be radio isotope labeled, and at some point the some eggs would be sacrificed to see if the night time drop eggs had a different accumulation of oxygen isotope after the same number of 'incubator days'. Also would night time drop eggs incubate at a different average number of days, and what would be the robustness of those neonates. "My" idea is that the change in temperature makes the eggs respire, more than at a stable temperature. Respiration is the result of metabolic processes in the egg. It would potentially do two things along two paths. Just pumping the air in and out might accelerate development, and it might also give rest to some processes. This as a thought experiment may be even more complex than narrated, but at least two factors could explain any differences in the observable parameters I hoped to look for. Days to emergence, and robustness. At the time we were generating many pancake tortoises with a high hatch rate."

Chris did two things that are variables in the egg that hatched. 1) He 'made' the egg respire by fluctuating the temp, and 2) he reduced the layer of egg shell making passive respiration work better. No telling which or if the combination had a synergistic effect.

Some of the successful Pyxis breeders use the night time temp swing as well. Eggs are seeds in a fashion and many seeds need to be 'scarified' to grow. The seeds that need abrasive scarification are often those that are in an arid environment (extra thick seed coat prevents desiccation. They are scarified by the gut of something that eats them, or by being tumbled with sand in a seasonal water way.

I found Chersina eggs during the morning that still had mucus slime on them in water ways in RSA. Wow.

 

[CarolM]

At nurseries and garden centers they have soil test kits for people to test their soil parameters. We also have a service where samples can be sent in to a lab for testing for a small fee. Do they do that there? I would imagine the farmers would all know about this. Know any farmers?

My brother farms grass I will ask him.

 

[CarolM]

At nurseries and garden centers they have soil test kits for people to test their soil parameters. We also have a service where samples can be sent in to a lab for testing for a small fee. Do they do that there? I would imagine the farmers would all know about this. Know any farmers?

Okay, My brother farms grass in the Artlantis area and there are quite a few angulate tortoises there. I asked him about the acidity level of the soil in Atlantis and he repsonse was " It is naturally between 3.5 and 4" I hope that means something to you guys.

 

[CarolM]

Okay, My brother farms grass in the Artlantis area and there are quite a few angulate tortoises there. I asked him about the acidity level of the soil in Atlantis and he repsonse was " It is naturally between 3.5 and 4" I hope that means something to you guys.

Artlantis is ATLANTIS.

 

[Sterant]

Okay, My brother farms grass in the Artlantis area and there are quite a few angulate tortoises there. I asked him about the acidity level of the soil in Atlantis and he repsonse was " It is naturally between 3.5 and 4" I hope that means something to you guys.

Wow! That's pretty acidic.

"A pH less than 7 is acidic. A pH greater than 7 is basic. The pH scale is logarithmic and as a result, each whole pH value below 7 is ten times more acidic than the next higher value. For example, pH 4 is ten times more acidic than pH 5 and 100 times (10 times 10) more acidic than pH 6"

 

[CarolM]

Wow! That's pretty acidic.

"A pH less than 7 is acidic. A pH greater than 7 is basic. The pH scale is logarithmic and as a result, each whole pH value below 7 is ten times more acidic than the next higher value. For example, pH 4 is ten times more acidic than pH 5 and 100 times (10 times 10) more acidic than pH 6"

Do you think it is wrong?

 

[Sterant]

Do you think it is wrong?

Not at all. I have no opinion on it - I know nothing about soil chemistry - but it would seem your brother does! Just interesting input into our shell chelation conversation. Thanks for getting this!

 

[CarolM]

Not at all. I have no opinion on it - I know nothing about soil chemistry - but it would seem your brother does! Just interesting input into our shell chelation conversation. Thanks for getting this!

No problem.

 

[Sterant]

No problem.

I am going to test the sand/soil mix I have the bowsprits on as I also incubate in that medium. From what I read, sandy soils are similarly acidic to your brothers.

 

[CarolM]

I am going to test the sand/soil mix I have the bowsprits on as I also incubate in that medium. From what I read, sandy soils are similarly acidic to your brothers.

I will see if I can get a test kit from the garden centre near me. If it is not too expensive I will get it and test my soil where I have seen the torts laying eggs.

 

[Anyfoot]

Interesting thread @Tom. I shall sit back and enjoy read to come.

I wonder how acidic their urine is. Some of mine urinate when digging a nest.

 

[Markw84]

Interesting thread @Tom. I shall sit back and enjoy read to come.

I wonder how acidic their urine is. Some of mine urinate when digging a nest.

All of my tortoise do that.

 

[Tom]

I wonder how acidic their urine is. Some of mine urinate when digging a nest.

Good question. Mine do too. All species, every time. This one seemed to be making a mud nest:

 

[Anyfoot]

It may well be all mine urinate whilst digging and I’ve just not observed closely enough.

Makes you wonder what impact we are having on the eggs when we remove them from the nesting site.
Mine also sniff the potential nesting sites, what are the smelling? Temperature and/or soil qualities, vitamins,minerals or acidity levels for example, And mine spend hours checking the bottom of the nest with their feet before laying, if this is for checking the temperature then the sniffing is more likely for soil quality.
Then some of us wash the eggs before placing into the incubator.
I wonder what the ph level is of the surface of a freshly laid egg?

Excuse my ignorance, what is the slime called on s freshly laid egg? Mucus!!!!

 

[Anyfoot]

Just found this female laying.

 

[Tom]

Nothing new to report about the clutch that is the subject of this experiment, but I have something interesting from a previous clutch from this same male and female. Tuck and Daisy.

Daisy lays large clutches. Normal is 30-32 and last year she laid 42 in one nest. That was a record for me. 36 was her highest before that. In any case, she laid 32 eggs in the ground on 1-8-18. This was her first clutch of the year. I dug them up and in random order placed them onto their egg flat, which I then carried into the reptile room, where I placed the eggs into their pre-prepaired shoe boxes with moistened vermiculite. Only 24 eggs will fit in one shoe box, so when I see Daisy laying, I always prepare two shoe boxes. Again, in random order, I placed 24 eggs in one box and the remaining 8 in the other. Same vermiculite from the same bag mixed with the same water, in the same ratio, in the same brand and type of shoe box, mixed within minutes of each other. The boxes went into the incubator at the same time and sat side by side on the same shelf. Everything identical.

The box with 8 pipped and began hatching about 5-6 days ago. All 8 hatched and everything seemed normal. Normal egg shell thickness, normal weights of 32-34 grams on the hatchlings. Nothing happening yet in the other box though… Until about two days ago, when the box with the other 24 eggs pipped and began hatching:


Again all looked normal, and I wondered why they were hatching several days apart. I remove hatchlings from the egg boxes as soon as they leave their egg under their own power. I don't like to mess with them while they are still sitting in their eggs. Some bust the top off the egg, but then remain sitting in the egg for a day or two to absorb their yolk sac. Another thing I do is rinse their egg and put it in the brooder box with them after hatching. I picked up the first hatchling to be rinsed and soaked, and it just felt heavy and solid. That is subjective. Lately I've been handling a lot of smaller leopard and star hatchlings, so maybe my perspective is a little "off". I got out the scale and this baby was 39 grams. Hmm… I pulled a few more out of the box and they were all 37-39 grams after rinsing. Why were they heavier, and why did they hatch 3-4 days later than their clutch mates in the other box next door? Next surprise, and the detail that is pertinent to this thread: Their egg shells were wafer thin. They just crumbled in my hand when I tried to rinse them. I often peel off the excess rubbery inner layer of the egg and put just the calcified "shell" in their brooder boxes with them. That is what I did about 3-4 days ago with their clutch mates. But these eggs wouldn't even hold their shape when I tried to peel the inner membrane off. It is clear that the calcification of the eggs in the box with 24 had been greatly reduced over the three month incubation period when compared to the box with only 8 eggs, whose shells remained more "normal". The hard "shell" portion had become so thin in the box with the 24 eggs, that it just crumbled in my fingers. It wouldn't even hold a shape.

Why? How? Where did the calcium go? Into the babies as it appears? The only variable I can see is the number of babies in each box. Did the crowded box of 24 create more carbon dioxide and generate carbonic acid inside the shoe box? This can sometimes happen in under-aerated fish tanks, or fish tanks with a lot of decaying organic matter, and it makes the water more acidic. A major problem for a salt water tank. I'd love to hear any ideas or explanation. Why did the larger batch hatch later? Why were their egg shells so much thinner? Why were they bigger than their clutch mates?

Random bunch of names with a lot of breeding experience here:
@Markw84
@Sterant
@HermanniChris
@kingsley
@zovick
@Will
@Anyfoot
@Yvonne G

Forgive me if I've left anyone out, and please contribute.

Please feel free to alert any other member to this conversation.