First the story-
my daughter called me today as she was leaving to go to work to let me know that there was a turtle laying eggs in the gravel road leaving our pasture.. she was warning me to be cautious not to run it over as I came in… so as I came in this evening, I looked for it and sure enough it was there. I stopped the truck well before coming upon it and my son and I got out of the truck to take a closer look. Unfortunately, as we walked up we saw that the turtle which was a red eared slider had already been run over. Her butt was down in a shallow area that she’d already begun to dig. Her plastron was split almost down the middle and on the side. It was pretty nasty. I picked her up to see if I needed to cover eggs and could tell that she had not dug enough to lay. As I was holding her up, my son informed me that he saw eggs.. IN HER! At a closer look, she did indeed have a “string” of eggs among other organs falling out of the broken area of her shell.. not knowing what else to do, I cautiously removed the eggs and brought them up to my house where I dug a hole and buried them. I placed a nest guard around the area and covered with some screen to protect from predators..
the question - is it possible that these eggs will hatch? I read that they are fertilized while laying and then I read somewhere else that they are fertilized during mating.. does anyone know what I should expect?
my daughter called me today as she was leaving to go to work to let me know that there was a turtle laying eggs in the gravel road leaving our pasture.. she was warning me to be cautious not to run it over as I came in… so as I came in this evening, I looked for it and sure enough it was there. I stopped the truck well before coming upon it and my son and I got out of the truck to take a closer look. Unfortunately, as we walked up we saw that the turtle which was a red eared slider had already been run over. Her butt was down in a shallow area that she’d already begun to dig. Her plastron was split almost down the middle and on the side. It was pretty nasty. I picked her up to see if I needed to cover eggs and could tell that she had not dug enough to lay. As I was holding her up, my son informed me that he saw eggs.. IN HER! At a closer look, she did indeed have a “string” of eggs among other organs falling out of the broken area of her shell.. not knowing what else to do, I cautiously removed the eggs and brought them up to my house where I dug a hole and buried them. I placed a nest guard around the area and covered with some screen to protect from predators..
the question - is it possible that these eggs will hatch? I read that they are fertilized while laying and then I read somewhere else that they are fertilized during mating.. does anyone know what I should expect?