She's Laying Eggs!!!

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Tom

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My little female Delores is laying her eggs, finally. Last year in the beginning of January she began to dig test holes and after a few days she dug the real hole and laid three infertile eggs.

This year she dug a bunch of test holes in Mid-December and then... nothing. And NO, I didn't miss it, she just didn't lay. I bumped up the warm water soaks and calcium supplementation, but still nothing happened. Then today around 3 pm I walk by the pen and see her digging out the bottom portion of a nest chamber. No test holes, no nothin'. Just BOOM! Eggs. Well she kept digging so I left her alone, until it started getting dark. Then I hung a heat lamp over her as the temp was in the low 50's already. Well as of 8:20pm she's laid the eggs( can't tell how many yet, but I could see some ) and now she's just sort of sitting there and slowly pushing a little dirt on them with her back legs.

SOOOOO......... Questions:

1. Is she done laying?

2. Can I pull her out of the hole and stick her back in her heated den box or do I need to let her finish covering them up and walk away?

3. For incubation temps is it warmer for more females or the other way around? I always get it confused. Incubator is all set up with fresh vermiculite and ready to go, just need a temp to shoot for.

I've got lots of experience keeping, but very little with breeding.

Let me also ask that those of you who frown upon sullie breeding please keep your comments to yourself. I started this project 12 years ago and we didn't have the perceived problems back then that we do now. This is the completion of a long term goal for me, so please go pee on someone else's parade. Besides all of that, I'm ready, willing and able to care for all of the offspring even if nobody else wants a single one.
 

kbaker

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Roachman26 said:
My little female Delores is laying her eggs, finally. Last year in the beginning of January she began to dig test holes and after a few days she dug the real hole and laid three infertile eggs.

This year she dug a bunch of test holes in Mid-December and then... nothing. And NO, I didn't miss it, she just didn't lay. I bumped up the warm water soaks and calcium supplementation, but still nothing happened. Then today around 3 pm I walk by the pen and see her digging out the bottom portion of a nest chamber. No test holes, no nothin'. Just BOOM! Eggs. Well she kept digging so I left her alone, until it started getting dark. Then I hung a heat lamp over her as the temp was in the low 50's already. Well as of 8:20pm she's laid the eggs( can't tell how many yet, but I could see some ) and now she's just sort of sitting there and slowly pushing a little dirt on them with her back legs.

SOOOOO......... Questions:

1. Is she done laying?

2. Can I pull her out of the hole and stick her back in her heated den box or do I need to let her finish covering them up and walk away?

3. For incubation temps is it warmer for more females or the other way around? I always get it confused. Incubator is all set up with fresh vermiculite and ready to go, just need a temp to shoot for.

I've got lots of experience keeping, but very little with breeding.

Let me also ask that those of you who frown upon sullie breeding please keep your comments to yourself. I started this project 12 years ago and we didn't have the perceived problems back then that we do now. This is the completion of a long term goal for me, so please go pee on someone else's parade. Besides all of that, I'm ready, willing and able to care for all of the offspring even if nobody else wants a single one.

Feels great - doesn't it? It will feel even greater when they hatch!!:)

1. I would say she is done if she is covering the nest.

2. It can go either way. She will take longer to finish in the cold, but if you wanted to move her into the heat den, that's fine, too. If it was warmer, I would say leave her be.

3. Warmer is female. 84 -89F - you can choose.

I have gotten five clutches each season from my female (Dudley). She is pretty timely. She starts about July-August and will lay about every 40 days.

They are cute when they hatch. Some times I'd rather keep them myself than to get a few bucks for them.
 

TortieGal

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Congrats on your eggs!! Hope all goes well, please remember to take lots of picture's for us when they hatch. :)
 

Tom

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Well, she only laid seven this time. More than double the last time. They are all in the incubator now. I've got the temp set at 84. I'll give them a week and then candle them to see if there is any vascularization. She buried them herself and moved out from under the heat lamp and then just sort of sat there in the dark looking bewildered. I carried her over to the shed and put her on her Kane mat, under the CHE.
 

Tom

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Meg90

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With my gecko eggs, I could see the "magic cheerio" within 24 hours. It basically looks like a pink cheerio at the top of the egg. I would assume that it would take a bit longer for development in a tortoise egg, but my estimating would be within a week or so. Sully eggs don't have to go through diapause if I'm remembering correctly. So being in the incubator ought to speed things up.
 

egyptiandan

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Cool eggs :D

You'll need the temperature a bit higher to get mostly females 30 to 32C. At that temperature incubation should be about 100 to 120 days. Your eggs should start "chalking up" (the egg gets a dark white spot, which gets bigger as the embryo gets bigger). You can see this when you shine a light into the egg as it will show up as a darker spot at the top of the egg. This usually happens within 10 days, if fertile. If the flash light is strong enough you should be able to see "the ring of life" 10 to 14 days after they first "chalk up".

Danny
 

kbaker

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When I said "84 -89F", I meant that was a good ranch to incubate. Closer to 84 is more males and closer to 89 is more females.

"I'll give them a week and then candle them to see if there is any vascularization."
Give them about a month before you start looking. You will just drive yourself nuts looking at tiny shadows. When you candle, yellow is infertile and red is fertile. Orange is ify and probably is a bad egg.

I incubate at the higher end. I don't keep good track of dates and times. The first one I hatched pipped at 87 days. In general, they hatche at about 90-100 days for me.

I never got the complete chalking thing or the ring of life. Each egg is a little different. At the top of my eggs, is the air bubble. They form on the side at first and then move to the bottom. I know with in days when they will hatch because it gets very dark in the egg and then the veins all dissappear.

I will try and take some pictures for you of the ones incubating now.
 

Tom

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kbaker said:
When I said "84 -89F", I meant that was a good ranch to incubate. Closer to 84 is more males and closer to 89 is more females.

"I'll give them a week and then candle them to see if there is any vascularization."
Give them about a month before you start looking. You will just drive yourself nuts looking at tiny shadows. When you candle, yellow is infertile and red is fertile. Orange is ify and probably is a bad egg.

I incubate at the higher end. I don't keep good track of dates and times. The first one I hatched pipped at 87 days. In general, they hatche at about 90-100 days for me.

I never got the complete chalking thing or the ring of life. Each egg is a little different. At the top of my eggs, is the air bubble. They form on the side at first and then move to the bottom. I know with in days when they will hatch because it gets very dark in the egg and then the veins all dissappear.

I will try and take some pictures for you of the ones incubating now.


It's so much more comforting to get advice from real people who've actually done it, rather than an impersonal, general knowledge book or website. Thanks for being there for me. Last year I wasn't expecting them to be fertile, but it was still very unnerving flying solo. I feel much better about it this time.

I'll bump the temps up a bit in the incubator. That room normally heats up to 86-87 on a warm day, so wherever I set the temp will be a minimum. Its going to be hard to leave them alone for 3 weeks, but I'll do my best.

You guys are the best. Thanks for the support and help.
 

egyptiandan

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If at all possible, you need to set the incubator up in a room that keeps as stable as possible a certain temperature. This keeps the temperature in the incubator stable as the thermostat really doesn't keep the incubator at a certain temperature. It keeps it at an amount of degrees above the ambient temperature. So if the room temperature goes up, the temperture in the incubator will go up and conversely go down if the room temperature goes down.
Unless your going with the room temperature method of incubating as discussed before. :D

Danny
 

Tom

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egyptiandan said:
If at all possible, you need to set the incubator up in a room that keeps as stable as possible a certain temperature. This keeps the temperature in the incubator stable as the thermostat really doesn't keep the incubator at a certain temperature. It keeps it at an amount of degrees above the ambient temperature. So if the room temperature goes up, the temperture in the incubator will go up and conversely go down if the room temperature goes down.
Unless your going with the room temperature method of incubating as discussed before. :D

Danny

Well that's interesting. Last year my reptile/roach room wasn't as closely controlled as it is now, so I incubated them here at home. I keep my house at 69-70 all winter long, and after a few adjustments got my Hovabator set right at 84 and used the little lock nut to hold that setting in place. It never fluctuated, except when I opened the lid to check on the eggs and add a little water, if needed. I never unlocked the locknut or adjusted the thermostat when I unplugged it so it should have stayed right where it was set.

Now, this year, my reptile/roach room never drops below 80. I've got redundant heaters and thermostats in there and its super stable. When I plugged in the incubator at about 3pm the little light came on and stayed on until it hit 84. I have the little glass tube thermometer that comes with the Hovabator on top of the egg shoebox and a remote probe inside the shoebox to confirm the temps. After 8 hours of running it held 84 perfectly. It dropped a little when I got back in from outside digging up the cold eggs and putting them in there, but leveled off at 84 again pretty quickly outside the shoe box. Inside the shoe box, where the eggs are, was still very gradually warming as of 11:30pm last night, but outside the shoe box, it was holding right at 84 in the incubator. Now, at 8:22am its stable at 84 inside and outside the shoe box.

I had it set at 14-15 degrees above ambient at home, so if what you are saying is correct, it should be 14-15 degrees above ambient in my reptile room as well. Doesn't seem to be the case.

My Kane heat mats for outside say they are designed to hold about 30 degrees above ambient. Is that the kind of thing you are thinking of? My Hovabator seems to have an actual thermostat designed to not drop below a certain temp, regardless of ambient. If I set it at 85-86, it should be extremely stable for the eggs in there.
 

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It's so exciting!

How cool that your little girl got to see her laying! :D

Now you have to wait for more than three months! At least it's not as long as the 280 days that you spent waiting for Ava! :p
 

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Watching them lay eggs never gets old! Unfortunately my russians have gotten so good at it that I usually don't get a chance to see it happen anymore. I do the weekly egg dig, which I will be doing a little later tonight. Luckily they always lay in the same spot (under the heat lamp).

Good luck with the incubation process. I very rarely have checked to see if my eggs are fertile, which is probably good because I have thrown away dozens and dozens that didn't hatch that were probably fertile at one time (I was inadvertently killing them by incubating them too dry). I've got three good Russian eggs in the incubator right now that I am hoping will hatch in a week or two, and the two that hatched last month are going to a reptile shop next weekend (traded two hatchlings for a 7" long-term female).

It makes the hobby that much more fun :)
 

Tom

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Stephanie Logan said:
It's so exciting!

How cool that your little girl got to see her laying! :D

Now you have to wait for more than three months! At least it's not as long as the 280 days that you spent waiting for Ava! :p

I'm thinking long term. I'm going to get pics of them incubating, pipping, hatching, and growing up with her. How cool will it be to have her 35 year old, smooth shelled, tortie with her at her wedding? Yes, I said 35. 'Cause she's not allowed to like boys before then.
 
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