Breeding Success...

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-ryan-

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After a dry spell of about three years between hatching clutches, I finally got some viable hatchlings last month from my breeding trio of russians. These live almost entirely indoors which poses a major challenge for them. I could not get the females to lay in a nest box, whether in the enclosure or not. They would just try to dig into the ground outside of the nest box and hit the bottom about 3-4" in and give up. That was the initial problem with the first baby that I hatched three years ago (when I purchased a large long-term female that happened to be gravid). After a month and a half of unsuccessful nest digging I went out and bought a large Rubbermaid stock tank (that 150 gallon one) and put 8-9" of cheap organic topsoil in. Within 24 hours she deposited two eggs in a fairly deep nest underneath the heat lamp. One of the eggs hatched after 2 months and I have raised that hatchling for the past three years (she is now over 6" SCL and 2.25 pounds... so she is taking after her very large mother). She is going to be added to the group in the coming years as she is not related to my male. The trio lives in the stock tank year round, with 'vacations' to an outdoor enclosure when we are around to supervise them.

Over the past three years I have gotten dozens and dozens of eggs from both my females. Some I incubated, and several were accidentally broken by me or the male when I did not discover them quick enough. It took me three years to figure out that I was letting them dry out too much in the incubator, so I fixed that and got two healthy babies from the last clutch of 4 eggs. I have 5 eggs in the incubator right now (two that I suspect are no longer any good), and will hopefully get some more hatchlings :)

Just thought I would share some of my small success. Indoor breeding of Russians is somewhat uncommon, and I think that a lot of it has to do with temperature (I keep mine pretty hot), and substrate depth/quality. I don't hibernate them, but due to the low temperature in the basement where they are kept and the amount of dirt, the tortoises seem to take turns digging down in the cool end for a few days at a time during the winter. On average I have gotten between 1 and 2 dozen eggs from the large female each year. The smaller one is less prolific, but I would say she still lays up to a dozen every year. I am hoping that the other female I am raising takes after her mom (so far she has in size).

Hope everyone is having a great holiday!
 

egyptiandan

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That's great news Ryan :)

Do you know what your fertility has been? Did you open any of the eggs that "went bad" to see if they were infertile or died?

I'm getting very different fertility rates from my different groups of Russians. From 100% to 90% for 2 groups and the other 2 groups 10% to 0%. Hatching success has been about 99% of fertile eggs.

Danny
 

-ryan-

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egyptiandan said:
That's great news Ryan :)

Do you know what your fertility has been? Did you open any of the eggs that "went bad" to see if they were infertile or died?

I'm getting very different fertility rates from my different groups of Russians. From 100% to 90% for 2 groups and the other 2 groups 10% to 0%. Hatching success has been about 99% of fertile eggs.

Danny

I did not check the eggs. To be honest, I think that a lot of the eggs they laid were infertile because the male is just now reaching 4 years old (so when he was first put into the group he was a 1 year old 4" CB tort, and not fertile... now he's about 5.5"). I think that the bad eggs were due in part to my poor incubation techniques, and the fact that the male was just too young. Now I know the group is ready to go though, and I think I have the incubation just about right, so I will be able to get a better idea of the fertility of the group.
 

dmmj

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Nice job baby russians are very cute.
 

Stephanie Logan

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What, all this great news about hatchlings, and no photos of the little munchkins? No fair!
 

-ryan-

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I don't really know how to post pics :( If you send me an email I can send you a couple of pics of the little guys.
 

Weloveourtortoise

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Congrats on your success. Please keep us up to date on new clutches!! please post pics -- not too hard if you upload to photo bucket first and copy & paste the img over to your message.
 

webskipper

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Most Internet providers provide free space to their clients. Try using their web address and then /~YourUsername/

Apple does it and it links to your Mac.

Start a simple page or try something like PhotoBucket
 

-ryan-

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Another clutch of 2 eggs is hatching (one has been out a couple days and the other is just hatching now). I have another clutch of three eggs in the incubator that are fertile, and if past experiences are an indication, I will have another clutch in the incubator either before or just shortly after they hatch (if they do).

I think I'm finally figuring this out! To date I have hatched 5, but 4 of them have been within the past 2-3 months. The other was three years ago, and then I had a dry spell (literally) before I realized that I was letting the vermiculite and consequently the eggs dry out too much.
 

soundwave

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Hi Ryan,

What issues did you have with incubation and how did you resolve it? I think that I'm having issues with the eggs drying out too

thanks

egyptiandan said:
That's great news Ryan :)

Do you know what your fertility has been? Did you open any of the eggs that "went bad" to see if they were infertile or died?

I'm getting very different fertility rates from my different groups of Russians. From 100% to 90% for 2 groups and the other 2 groups 10% to 0%. Hatching success has been about 99% of fertile eggs.

Danny

Hi Danny,

how do you determine if the eggs was infertile or died when open it up?

thanks
 

egyptiandan

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You really have to watch out using a "wet" incubation medium when incubating Testudo eggs. It's much to easy to over do it and have the eggs soak up to much water and crack.
I always use a dry incubation medium with Testudo. As long as your using a large wide mouthed container (for greater evaporation) for water, you should have no trouble keeping the humidity high enough. Air humidity is better for Testudo eggs than substrate humidity.
If your getting into an egg that didn't hatch, an infertile egg will be just yolk or dry inside. A fertile egg that died, will almost always have a tortoise of some size in it. From 1/16th of an inch to full size.

Danny
 

-ryan-

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egyptiandan said:
You really have to watch out using a "wet" incubation medium when incubating Testudo eggs. It's much to easy to over do it and have the eggs soak up to much water and crack.
I always use a dry incubation medium with Testudo. As long as your using a large wide mouthed container (for greater evaporation) for water, you should have no trouble keeping the humidity high enough. Air humidity is better for Testudo eggs than substrate humidity.
If your getting into an egg that didn't hatch, an infertile egg will be just yolk or dry inside. A fertile egg that died, will almost always have a tortoise of some size in it. From 1/16th of an inch to full size.

Danny

I had a water container in the hovabator with them and they were in uncovered plastic containers, and I started to figure out that they might be drying out because all of the eggs that went bad were a lot lighter than when they went in the incubator. Of course, this was just the hypothesis, but I think the results speak volumes. Every egg so far that I have incubated using a lightly moistened vermiculite (which I weigh and add more water to every week to account for evaporation) and a closed container (with air holes) has hatched. Literally the first clutch that I switched to that method hatched, and the clutch hatching now was incubated using that method. The vermiculite is not moistened a lot (just a little more than 1:1 by weight) but I maintain the moisture, and that is what I think I was missing last time. They do lose moisture every week. A 300g container (with eggs in it) loses about 10g a week, even when they are covered, in a closed incubator, and have a dish of water in the incubator with them.

I'm going to withhold my official judgment on this incubation method until I am certain that these clutches are not some sort of anomaly, but so far it's looking pretty good :)
 

-ryan-

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Upon hatching:



The one that I decided to keep, two weeks after hatching:



Note: These are from the November clutch, not this months' clutch.
 

Stephanie Logan

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So cute!

And now, after you made all that effort to post photos, I am going to complain that they are too small! I want close-ups of the wee munchkins! :p
 

Yvonne G

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If you click on the picture it gets bigger.
 

-ryan-

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Yeah, sorry, I thought I would do it the fancy way :)

Lucky number 5 is still working on breaking out of the shell. I am confident he'll be out by tomorrow morning.
 

-ryan-

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Thought I'd post a pic of the 1.2 group:



This is one that I raised from the egg for the past three years, and she will eventually turn it into a 1.3 group (she is from the largest female, but not my male):



and then we'll see what the new little one (in the pic in the post earlier) turns out to be to decide what role he/she will play in the breeding efforts :) Wish I knew what temperature those eggs were incubated at.
 

Stephanie Logan

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emysemys said:
If you click on the picture it gets bigger.

Thanks Yvonne. Good thing you can't see how red my face is. :rolleyes:

That's what I love about the Tortoise Forum--I learn something new every day! ;)

Your torties are totally tantalizing, Ryan. :D
 
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