It was starting out like any ordinary day. It was cloudy out so the dogs and cats were sleeping in (sorta), Ash ( my daughter) had come for the night, so things were moving slow. Fed the outside animals and came into the frig to get a cold drink of tea. Looked over at my Erosa (the ones from TSA) and saw something white at the far back corner, which is were all three normally hang out a lot. My mind said, "well you guys didn't eat all your mushroms last night, did you?", then it clicked. "Those can't be mushrooms!". I moved closer and lifted the lid. "OMG! OMG!!! Egggs!!!!" Calmly, okay with no calmness at all and wanting to shout at the top of my lungs, I found the flashlight to get a really clear view of the far back. "Yeapers them be eggs!" 
Now panic starts to really set in, as thoughts of how in the heck do I work with these eggs? rolled around in my poor brain.
I decided, I need to take them out for safety and then ask a few hingeback friends once more, for their ideas and then go from there. (We all know I am good at getting eggs, but have horrible luck keeping them and actually coming up with hatchlings.) So I fix an empty ice cream carton that was sitting on the counter with some fresh substrate, mimicking how the adults are kept. I slowly lift out the eggs, which are only half buried. One, two, three, four, and wait a second what am I seeing now? A broken egg... but that's not all. There is another nest down there! A few weeks back, I had dug up this area thinking perhaps the one female had laid eggs. She had been acting strange and I feared I was seeing the first stages of decline. This scares me with any tortoise, especially a hingeback, but even worse with this group, as they are TSA tortoises. *gulp* At the time I found no eggs and in a few days the female was back to normal, much to my relief.
So I prepare another ice cream carton (knew when I saved them from last summer I would find a use for them! ). Even more slowly, I carefully remove the next bunch. One, two, three and finally a fourth one. !!!
So in the writing of this, I have calmed down, breathing is back to normal, and I am not feeling like hanging off the roof top screaming the news.
The Easter Tortoise loves me and he came early!!!! ... okay NOW I feel better.
Now panic starts to really set in, as thoughts of how in the heck do I work with these eggs? rolled around in my poor brain. I decided, I need to take them out for safety and then ask a few hingeback friends once more, for their ideas and then go from there. (We all know I am good at getting eggs, but have horrible luck keeping them and actually coming up with hatchlings.) So I fix an empty ice cream carton that was sitting on the counter with some fresh substrate, mimicking how the adults are kept. I slowly lift out the eggs, which are only half buried. One, two, three, four, and wait a second what am I seeing now? A broken egg... but that's not all. There is another nest down there! A few weeks back, I had dug up this area thinking perhaps the one female had laid eggs. She had been acting strange and I feared I was seeing the first stages of decline. This scares me with any tortoise, especially a hingeback, but even worse with this group, as they are TSA tortoises. *gulp* At the time I found no eggs and in a few days the female was back to normal, much to my relief.
So I prepare another ice cream carton (knew when I saved them from last summer I would find a use for them!
). Even more slowly, I carefully remove the next bunch. One, two, three and finally a fourth one. !!!So in the writing of this, I have calmed down, breathing is back to normal, and I am not feeling like hanging off the roof top screaming the news.
The Easter Tortoise loves me and he came early!!!! ... okay NOW I feel better.
