First of the 2014 hatchling cherry heads have emerged. In this clutch laid on 8/5/13, one of the eggs was exceptionally large. The measurement of that egg was 6.2 X 4.1 cm. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to weigh it. The other three eggs in the clutch were normal sized for the 12+ inch female.
The first egg from the clutch pipped on Jan 5th...
It emerged as a decent looking but very large neonate...
In the foreground you can see the largest egg from the clutch.
The next hatchling from this clutch also pipped on Jan 5th and it too was rather large...
Finally, some five weeks later the largest egg from the clutch began to hatch.
Like most elongated eggs I've hatched, the emerging neonate was sort of 'spiraled' inside of his egg so as to fit.
Seeing a hatchling come out of an egg in this shape tends to make tortoise breeders a bit nervous at first. It reminds me of when I saw my son right after he emerged from his mommie's birth canal-- with a cone shaped head. I ran out of the room screaming...
...where was I?
Oh yeah, even though the new hatchling had this weird shape, only after a couple of days he straightened out. Here is the jumbo egg hatchling (far left) along with his siblings that are now a month out of their eggs...
A few days later. The flash from the camera has bleached their colors bit. Actually they are fairly red...
Plastrons. All are dark colored.
All of the neonates from this clutch were big and they measured between 5.3 to 5.4 cm one week out of their eggs. The 'jumbo' hatchling was 5.4 at one week post hatching.
In my experience larger eggs take longer to hatch so the extra weeks of incubation didn't worry me. So I would advise others to resist the temptation to start manually opening larger eggs from a clutch when the smaller eggs from that clutch have already hatched.
The first egg from the clutch pipped on Jan 5th...
It emerged as a decent looking but very large neonate...
In the foreground you can see the largest egg from the clutch.
The next hatchling from this clutch also pipped on Jan 5th and it too was rather large...
Finally, some five weeks later the largest egg from the clutch began to hatch.
Like most elongated eggs I've hatched, the emerging neonate was sort of 'spiraled' inside of his egg so as to fit.
Seeing a hatchling come out of an egg in this shape tends to make tortoise breeders a bit nervous at first. It reminds me of when I saw my son right after he emerged from his mommie's birth canal-- with a cone shaped head. I ran out of the room screaming...
...where was I?
Oh yeah, even though the new hatchling had this weird shape, only after a couple of days he straightened out. Here is the jumbo egg hatchling (far left) along with his siblings that are now a month out of their eggs...
A few days later. The flash from the camera has bleached their colors bit. Actually they are fairly red...
Plastrons. All are dark colored.
All of the neonates from this clutch were big and they measured between 5.3 to 5.4 cm one week out of their eggs. The 'jumbo' hatchling was 5.4 at one week post hatching.
In my experience larger eggs take longer to hatch so the extra weeks of incubation didn't worry me. So I would advise others to resist the temptation to start manually opening larger eggs from a clutch when the smaller eggs from that clutch have already hatched.