# What a crazy egg day!



## tortadise (May 7, 2014)

Geeze come home from work, throw some shorts on and bam eggs everywhere. 

Got one egg from some pretty rare lobatse hinge backs that just came a few weeks ago from South Africa. Here's the mom. Still in quarantine too.


It's the egg on the top. Being cooled with the Chaco egg that was laid Saturday



Then our big leopard laid a 17 egg clutch. Pretty good size clutch. She usually lays around 10-12




Then found 4 eggs in the Sri Lankan star pen.

During all this madness the dogs were going crazy at the steps for one of the building is. Find out it was a cottonmouth. So battled trying to catch that for 30 minutes. What a night.


----------



## guille24 (May 7, 2014)

Awesome ! Congrats and I hope all of the hatch !


----------



## bouaboua (May 7, 2014)

Congrats, Congrats, Congrats! ! ! ! !!


----------



## wellington (May 7, 2014)

Wow, busy, busy. Good luck with them.


----------



## shanu303 (May 7, 2014)

CONGRATS!!


----------



## mike taylor (May 7, 2014)

You didn't kill it did you? I love snakes just as much as tortoises .


----------



## tortoise Inc (May 7, 2014)

What's going on in Picture four, is she digging, do they wee to make the soil diggable if soil is to dry....


----------



## tortadise (May 8, 2014)

mike taylor said:


> You didn't kill it did you? I love snakes just as much as tortoises .


I didn't it did get away though. Found a crack into the siding of the outside greenhouse. So he's living around there. Not too worried about the torts and snakes. Torts are so docile they pose no threat. But all the volunteers, and my dogs I do worry about. I always relocate them a couple hundred acres up to a pond. Except the copperheads. I take them about a1000 acres over to a forest area.


----------



## tortadise (May 8, 2014)

tortoise Inc said:


> What's going on in Picture four, is she digging, do they wee to make the soil diggable if soil is to dry....


Yep females will urinate to make the soil muddy or more clay like. Easier to excavate. Took her about an hour or so to dig this nest. Nice black soil down here. When water hits it (or any liquid) it's perfect nest digging substrate.


----------



## Jacqui (May 18, 2014)

Pretty hingeback, sure hope her egg hatches... and the rest too of course!


----------



## tortadise (May 19, 2014)

Jacqui said:


> Pretty hingeback, sure hope her egg hatches... and the rest too of course!


She sure is. Not sure how many have been hatched in the US. She's gained 217 grams since she laid that egg. So hoping she will plop some more out. I'm a week or so away from cooling that egg. Hope it develops after the cooling once placed in the incubator. Such a cool species of Kinixys for sure.


----------



## Kathy Coles (May 19, 2014)

There must have been some sort of tortoise party going on for this to happen all at once. Was the bartender serving up cactus juice???


----------



## tortadise (May 19, 2014)

Ha. It was a full moon, and pressure systems built up before a storm the next day. Usually I see very consistent egg laying just before a spring storm, when the pressure rises a lot.


----------



## Yvonne G (May 19, 2014)

Did the Chaco ever finish laying her eggs?


----------



## tortadise (May 19, 2014)

She did. The second one was broken though. The other females turn now. Should be getting another clutch in a few weeks from her too. So hopefully will go better this upcoming second clutch. I've loosened and churned the soil more. I think she had trouble with the second egg because she spent all her energy digging all day. Then the sun went down. So trying to make it easier for them.


----------



## Saleama (May 19, 2014)

I know you sell some and wholesale others Kelly, but what are your plans for the more exotic babies? I am going to assume that you keep the Chacos and rare hingebacks? What about the Stars? Have you had any success with the Egyptians?


----------



## tortadise (May 19, 2014)

Saleama said:


> I know you sell some and wholesale others Kelly, but what are your plans for the more exotic babies? I am going to assume that you keep the Chacos and rare hingebacks? What about the Stars? Have you had any success with the Egyptians?


Most of the rarer ones we do keep or give to zoo, and or colleagues that have those species already. Egyptians won't lay until the fall-winter and hatch next spring.


----------



## TigsMom (May 19, 2014)

Eggggg-cellent Egg Day! Best wishes for many, many successes!


----------



## N2TORTS (May 19, 2014)

Very Nice Kelly , things are cranking at the compound!


----------



## tortadise (May 19, 2014)

Sure are JD. Hoping many months from now, a lot of the rarer ones crack out.


----------



## tortadise (Jun 3, 2014)

Well received another egg from the lobatse Hingeback Sunday. I am trying a different method with this egg. I put it straight into the cooler. Will leave it I'm there until I see temps start to rise in South Africa regions where they came from, then proceed with incubation temps of 86-88


----------



## tortadise (Jun 4, 2014)

Clutch number 2 was laid last night around 10:20. I didn't haven phone to snap pics. But one more 17 egg clutch.


----------

