Tiny Sulcata Eggs

[kbaker]

Some might remember my poll where I got four tiny eggs from a small female Sulcata. Well, about a month later she laid a clutch of 16 tiny eggs.

So, what does everyone think of this? There are others on this forum that have issues with their turtle or tortoise laying large eggs. Some say not to let your small females produce because the eggs will get stuck inside or the opening for the egg is too small.

If this is true, then why is my small female laying small eggs?

Is it that not all tortoises are created equal? Some through small eggs while others throw big eggs?

My older female I have had since she was a hatchling and her eggs have always been the same size (this is her fourth season). Is there a chance that this small female will lay small eggs her entire life?

What does everyone think?

 

[Yvonne G]

Immature follicles? I wonder if there are dwarf/little people/midget tortoises as there are in the human species?

 

[Kristina]

I have no clue... But if what Yvonne said was true, you would be sitting on a goldmine, lol. Can you imagine mini Sulcatas???

Did you incubate the first batch? I am just curious if any proved to be fertile.

 

[TylerStewart]

We have small females that lay large eggs, and large females that lay small eggs (and everything in between). The one constant is that it seems to be the overall size (mass) of the clutch that stays the same.... We will get larger numbers of small eggs or smaller numbers of larger eggs. We rarely get large numbers of large eggs from any size female. The largest eggs are usually in smaller clutches (12-18 or so). Our record of 36 eggs was very small eggs, but mostly hatched just fine (90%?).

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

We have small females that lay large eggs, and large females that lay small eggs (and everything in between). The one constant is that it seems to be the overall size (mass) of the clutch that stays the same.... We will get larger numbers of small eggs or smaller numbers of larger eggs. We rarely get large numbers of large eggs from any size female. The largest eggs are usually in smaller clutches (12-18 or so). Our record of 36 eggs was very small eggs, but mostly hatched just fine (90%?).

Interesting.

 

[Tom]

All of mine produce eggs around the same size, but I do get more eggs out of the bigger tortoises. I haven't run into the smaller eggs yet. My hatchlings do seem to be getting bigger though. They used to all be right around 35 grams and now they are all getting to be right around 40 at hatching. I had a giant 44 gram hatchling last batch and a 36 grammer that looked "runty" compared to her 40ish gram clutchmates. I weighed the eggs in my clutch that was laid last week as I pit them in the incubator. They were 52-66 grams each.

 

[kbaker]

I am for whether large or small, they can grow to be 'normal' sized/healthy adults.

In another post, Tom brought up the possibility of Sulcata sub-species. Whether agreed upon or not, many species/sub-species have different sized eggs and different sized clutches and ranges of multiple clutching. Within a species, there is some ranges for all of the above, but there tends to be a separation of species/sub-species that includes this, too. What makes this more of a factor is if there are Sulcata sub-species, it will be very hard to spot the characteristics and with the state of the wild populations, almost impossible to learn the differences between sub-species. DNA sampling seem out of reach at this time, too.

Tyler-
Any characteristics (physical or activity), that might imply that the small egg females may be different than the larger egg females? I know I have seen many Sulcatas adults and their heads are shaped differently, ears are some times larger than other Sulcatas ears, scale size, shell shape/proportions,...(sadly, some can't tell one Sulcata from another! ).