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OMG! Congrats! It will be so much fun hearing about the progress!

egyptiandan Wrote:Thats excellent news Robyn. 3 is about normal clutch size for T. g. antakyensis, so she shouldn't be laying again for another 20 to 30 days.
Keep a very close eye on the incubator. It's sometimes hard to keep the temperatures low. Keep checking it these first few days.
What do you have the eggs in and what are they sitting on?
What are you doing for humidity?

Danny

I wiped them off with a damp towel-dryed them then placed them on vermiculite. I kind of made a nest shape in it and placed them on it. I numbered, measured and weighed each egg. #1=17 gm 3.5cm, #2=15 gm 3.2cm and #3=16 gm 3.0 cm. Temp is about 94 and humidity I am shooting for no less than 50% I have a small bowl with water inside the incubator and a hydrometer so I can keep track. Any suggestions or tweaks are appreciated.

Also how long before I can find out if they are fertile eggs?

nothing new here. she rested almost all morning, and ate like a tiger. now she's digging again.

Hi Robyn,
You want to get that temperature down a bit to about 88F. Is the vermiculite dry?
The yolk on a good egg will settle to the bottom within 24 hours, you will see what looks like a line of yellow on the bottom and no color on top if you look on the side of the egg when you shine a small flash light on top of the egg.
Other than that a fertile egg should start to chalk up (turn white) within a week, sometimes taking 3 weeks to show that.
I'll post some pictures later.

Danny

SHE JUST LAYED TWO EGGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dropping her second egg:


Burying her eggs:


The proud papa, Roland, giving me a high five!


I'm sooooo excited!!!!!!!

YAY!!! HOW TOTALLY COOL!! Congrats on the eggs and thanks for the pics too!! Roland looks way too excited!! LOL

Okay so since I don't have an incubator yet we did dig the eggs out and put them in an temporary "incubator" following something I had seen Joe Heinen suggest. So hopefully all is good! I hope it stays moist enough!

Congratulations Kelly, Roland looks so totally cool and proud. Yeah, you got pictures of Calypso laying, how cool is that.

OK danny so temp about 88 and humidity about 70%. Yes the vermiculite is dry. I have a larger bowl of water in there to keep humidity up. I will be watching the temp and humidity like a hawk until I leave tomorrow night. Then I am placing them with a Teacher friend of mine, who I am sure will watch them like a hawk. Thanks Danny.

This will be exciting for us to be "expecting" babies at the same time! It'll be great to see how they grow together! LOL!

Thats great news Kelly and great pictures. Don't worry so much about humidity Kelly, just temperature.

Your welcome Robyn

Kelly the Russians will be hatching before the Greeks will be.

Danny

Yay for me! LOL! i'm not good at any sort of waiting game!

Congrats Kelly - so much exciting news! Danny, I have a question for you. When I bred my bearded dragons we kept the vermiculite damp. You keep it dry for torts?

For most tortoises you would keep the substrate dry, but the forest tortoises need a slightly damp substrate. To much water will make a hard shelled egg crack.
All soft shelled eggs need to be on a damp substrate, most reptile eggs are soft shelled. If they weren't they would dry up.

Danny

Wow I go away for a few days and miss all the excitement!! Congrats to you both!!![/b]