How to make a great nesting site for a Leopard Tortoise

[spikethebest]

Hello everyone,

I recently got 2 really big leopard tortoises. I actually have 3 big ones, but two of them are actively mating everyday. I am hoping the female will lay some eggs for me sometime soon. But I want to get the area ready for her. They stay outside 24/7. They sleep in a covered dog house kind of thing with a heating pad. When it gets really cold, I bring them inside to be under heat lamps. But its the summer time, and stays pretty warm at night.

So their area has some really hard dirt mostly, so I am not sure what I can do to make their area as suitable as possible.

Any ideas on how to prepare/built a nice nesting area for my leopard?

Thanks

 

[Yvonne G]

Cory:

You probably didn't pay too much attention to my leopard pen when you were here. The leopard pen and the section right next to it, up to the green house, used to be all grass and leopard pen. I had 2 males and 4 females. The grass was bermuda grass, which is a very strong and invasive plant with strong, strong roots. My female leopards dug nests anywhere all over that area. In the grass. My dirt is red clay, which gets hard as cement.

I don't know if your females have long toe nails, but mine all did. Overly long on the back feet. They would dig a bit, then urinate there, then dig some more, urinate some more.

I don't think you have to worry about preparing the soil for them, because they're going to place their nest in a spot that is suitable to THEM, not to you. And if you prepare something, she'll go clear around to the other side and do her own thing.

 

[spikethebest]

Thanks Yvonne. Yes my female does have very long and curved toe nails. okay, I wont do anything, and just hope it all goes well. Thanks so much.

 

[Greg T]

Keep us posted. I'd like to know where she chooses and how deep she digs. Good luck to many fertile eggs!

 

[spikethebest]

Will do!

 

[Neal]

My female recently laid eggs:

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/thread-17066.html

You can see the area has alot of rocks, she was able to move all the rocks and dig in the rock hard soil underneath. Just keep her well hydrated because she'll need to urinate a lot to loosen the soil.

Would like to see pictures of your leopards if you are able to.
Neal

 

[spikethebest]

My female...

http://tortoiseforum.org/thread-16786.html

sorry these shots arent the best. they are from my outdoor cameras...

 

[Neal]

Good looking leopards. Your female is huge so I wouldn't worry at all about her finding a place to dig. You can kind of tell but in my pictures we have a weed guard underneath the rocks which is pretty thick, she was able to tear a whole right through it. Keep us posted!

 

[spikethebest]

what time of the day did she do it? what season of the year? is now the time of the year for them?

 

[dmmj]

Instead of them ewasting all their urine softening up the grond, could you just water a big area of their pen to make it easier for them to dig?

 

[Neal]

what time of the day did she do it? what season of the year? is now the time of the year for them?

She did it on an overcast afternoon; the high was maybe 100 degrees. Talking with a few other leopard owners in AZ, the egg lying season seems to be correlated with the Monsoon, or mid to late summer. There have been a couple of other posts on this forum recently of leopards laying eggs, mine happened two weeks ago. In Richard Fifes book he says egg lying can happen in any month. I don't know where you are at but if you know of any other leopard owners in your area I would talk with them and see if you notice any patterns as it seems different environmental factors affect the egg laying season among other things such as the tortoises geopgraphical origin.

---

Instead of them ewasting all their urine softening up the grond, could you just water a big area of their pen to make it easier for them to dig?

You could, but, like Yvonne said, the tortoise may choose a different area to dig the nest. I think it would be better to keep the tortoise well hydrated and let her decide where the best place would be to build the nest then make sure she gets a long soaking afterwards.

 

[spikethebest]

what time of the day did she do it? what season of the year? is now the time of the year for them?

She did it on an overcast afternoon; the high was maybe 100 degrees. Talking with a few other leopard owners in AZ, the egg lying season seems to be correlated with the Monsoon, or mid to late summer. There have been a couple of other posts on this forum recently of leopards laying eggs, mine happened two weeks ago. In Richard Fifes book he says egg lying can happen in any month. I don't know where you are at but if you know of any other leopard owners in your area I would talk with them and see if you notice any patterns as it seems different environmental factors affect the egg laying season among other things such as the tortoises geopgraphical origin.

---

Instead of them ewasting all their urine softening up the grond, could you just water a big area of their pen to make it easier for them to dig?

You could, but, like Yvonne said, the tortoise may choose a different area to dig the nest. I think it would be better to keep the tortoise well hydrated and let her decide where the best place would be to build the nest then make sure she gets a long soaking afterwards.

---

I do hose down the area to try to get the weeds grow, keep the dust from blowing, and I live in Los Angeles.

 

[oswego tort lover]

here in NY about 15 miles S of lake ontario my 27yr old s.p.b. lays from june to nov 3-5 times in yrs past..they stay out 24/7 from early june to late sept and sometimes every few yrs the temp will go down to 46f at nite ..as long as the next days are sunny theres no worry. as far as picking a pl to lay the females will find one and maybe change to another spot over the years.. mine have ..my indian stars which ive had for 13 yrs live the same way...ed

 

[spikethebest]

here in NY about 15 miles S of lake ontario my 27yr old s.p.b. lays from june to nov 3-5 times in yrs past..they stay out 24/7 from early june to late sept and sometimes every few yrs the temp will go down to 46f at nite ..as long as the next days are sunny theres no worry. as far as picking a pl to lay the females will find one and maybe change to another spot over the years.. mine have ..my indian stars which ive had for 13 yrs live the same way...ed

thanks for your input. much appreciated.