# Fertile and Infertile Eggs



## Yvonne G

Since I have a good example of each in my incubator right now I thought I'd post it so you can see the difference. Hopefully the picture shows it good enough.

The eggs on the lower left are fertile. Notice how white they are. When we talk about "chalking" this is what we're talking about.

The eggs on the upper right are sort of translucent and not white. These are not fertile and haven't chalked.


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## GeneR

Thanks. My Hermann's recently laid a clutch for the first time, and seeing the comparison very much helps.


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## wellington

Yvonne, the ones that haven't chalked. Is there still a chance they will and that's why people will still hang on to them for a time?


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## Yvonne G

No, I doubt they're any good. But there's always hope. I hate to toss eggs.


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## ZEROPILOT

I've had all duds so far.
I kept most of them until they exploded like stink bombs.
Thanks for the photo.


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## Eric Phillips

Has anyone ever had at times where 1 egg or so is fertile and the rest are infertile in a clutch? 1 good egg out of a bunch of bad ones?


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## wellington

Eric Phillips said:


> Has anyone ever had at times where 1 egg or so is fertile and the rest are infertile in a clutch? 1 good egg out of a bunch of bad ones?


I believe that's pretty much what I had. Out of much over 20 eggs last year. I had one hatch. One split open with what looked like a fully developed leopard inside, but was dead and all the rest went bad. I was never able to seen veins or anything moving or looking like at baby inside any of them, even the one that did hatch. The one that did hatch is doing great and will be a year in November. Oh, I have no idea if they all started out fertile and went bad, or some clutches fertile and other ss not. 
It was 4 different clutches. Approx 33 eggs total I think.


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## Kapidolo Farms

Making an egg is an expensive thing for a turtle or tortoise to do, lots of nutrients get used up, and much risk is taken when a female lays eggs. The few times I have found statistics for wild nests, without regard to hatch rate, most eggs are fertile when laid. 

I have an argumentative (debate not cattiness) that is speculative. . . 

I think at least some of the takeaway could be that infertile eggs are a result of good husbandry, in that the female had an abundance of resources. I think males, when held in close proximity to females are not very thrifty with their resources, so male fertility (effective, that is) goes down while females' go up with the high quality food we offer in over abundance.

Think about that!


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## Yvonne G

Eric Phillips said:


> Has anyone ever had at times where 1 egg or so is fertile and the rest are infertile in a clutch? 1 good egg out of a bunch of bad ones?



That just about explains most of my Manouria luck. I was able to get 1, 2 and sometimes 3 hatchlings out of over 20 eggs each sitting, and the eggs that didn't hatch were empty upon opening.

To add to what Will just said, he recently hatched almost all of the eggs laid this past spring by one female from the same group that used to live here. Besides climate, the main difference was that the male had been separated from the females for quite a while.


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## seanang168

14 May 2017, my star tortoise laid an egg. But it is not the chalky type indicated up here. More like a bit pinkish if you candle it. So highly chance is that it is not fertile? My star has been laying eggs since 2008 but I never have any success


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## seanang168

Ok today 7 Jul 2017, my star tortoise just laid another egg. But got a faint hairline crack. Keeping my fingers crossed


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## mike taylor

Eric Phillips said:


> Has anyone ever had at times where 1 egg or so is fertile and the rest are infertile in a clutch? 1 good egg out of a bunch of bad ones?


Yes ! My red foot dropped a load of eggs and I only got one baby .


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## wellington

That happened to me starting two years ago with my leopard. Bunch of eggs. One hatched, two others baby died inside eggs, one appeared fully developed the other almost. All the other eggs, around 20 or so nothing.


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## Eric Phillips

Here's a pic of some box turtle eggs fertile and infertile...

The top two the embryos never developed....the next 2 were chalking when this pic was taken(you can see the band on the egg on the left)...the next 2 were laid above ground from the rest of this clutch and they were infertile....the bottom one chalked. So 3 out of 7 appears to be good at 34 days while the other 4 either collapsed or never chalked and were full of yolk.


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## ALDABRAMAN

Eric Phillips said:


> Has anyone ever had at times where 1 egg or so is fertile and the rest are infertile in a clutch? 1 good egg out of a bunch of bad ones?



~ Yes, rare, however we have had several with only a single fertile egg in a clutch.


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## Rony khade

Yvonne G said:


> Since I have a good example of each in my incubator right now I thought I'd post it so you can see the difference. Hopefully the picture shows it good enough.
> 
> The eggs on the lower left are fertile. Notice how white they are. When we talk about "chalking" this is what we're talking about.
> 
> The eggs on the upper right are sort of translucent and not white. These are not fertile and haven't chalked.
> 
> View attachment 182727


I am having 2 eggs in the incubator 
showing the exact characteristics as shown in pic 
but 
in my case the one which is turned brown started chalking and appears reddish pink when candles
and the other appears as the eggs in lower left it didnt showed chalking 
the eggs I have are of indian star tortoise layyed on 9th dec


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## BevSmith

Rony khade said:


> I am having 2 eggs in the incubator
> showing the exact characteristics as shown in pic
> but
> in my case the one which is turned brown started chalking and appears reddish pink when candles
> and the other appears as the eggs in lower left it didnt showed chalking
> the eggs I have are of indian star tortoise layyed on 9th dec



Did they ever hatch?


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## Stoneman

Hey Yvonne, thank you for the great info! I have a question, are those eggs just laid or is it close to the time of hatching? 

I have some eggs that look pretty white, but they were just hatched so I am not sure. Do these eggs look good? The darker colored eggs are the same eggs, just under a regular yellowish overhead bulb but without the flash. 

Has anyone ever washed their eggs? Using Tek-Trol? I use that for cleaning fertile chicken hatching eggs. I want to clean the eggs off in order to prevent bacteria. They are already in the incubator.


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## Stoneman

Will do you think my indian star tortoise eggs look alright?



Will said:


> Making an egg is an expensive thing for a turtle or tortoise to do, lots of nutrients get used up, and much risk is taken when a female lays eggs. The few times I have found statistics for wild nests, without regard to hatch rate, most eggs are fertile when laid.
> 
> I have an argumentative (debate not cattiness) that is speculative. . .
> 
> I think at least some of the takeaway could be that infertile eggs are a result of good husbandry, in that the female had an abundance of resources. I think males, when held in close proximity to females are not very thrifty with their resources, so male fertility (effective, that is) goes down while females' go up with the high quality food we offer in over abundance.
> 
> Think about that!


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## Yvonne G

VividTortoises said:


> Hey Yvonne, thank you for the great info! I have a question, are those eggs just laid or is it close to the time of hatching?
> 
> I have some eggs that look pretty white, but they were just hatched so I am not sure. Do these eggs look good? The darker colored eggs are the same eggs, just under a regular yellowish overhead bulb but without the flash.
> 
> Has anyone ever washed their eggs? Using Tek-Trol? I use that for cleaning fertile chicken hatching eggs. I want to clean the eggs off in order to prevent bacteria. They are already in the incubator.


The two clutches were laid on May 15th and on June 11th, and the post was written in August. So the clutch showing "L" was three months in.


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## Kapidolo Farms

VividTortoises said:


> Will do you think my indian star tortoise eggs look alright?



It looks like they are four images of one clutch all alid on the 14th? So, I guess they look okay. I have not had laying females or hatched out eggs from Star Tortoises - so don't have a feel for quickly they may band, if star eggs do band for that matter. Banding is a process where some visible change occurs starting as a 'band' around the center part of the egg and that expands towards each end. This is often seen as a sign that the eggs are good. Spme eggs do not band and yet still seem to be good and hatch later on.

There are several folks in the star tortoise sub-forum that might offer a stronger guidance as to how to interpret the fertility or quality of the eggs. You might try posting the image(s) there.


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## Stoneman

Whew. Okay. Fingers crossed then. I will try not to get discouraged. Good luck Will, I hope that they end up hatching for you soon. I will check there. Thank you.


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## Phillipspdx

I have a male and female Russian and the female just started laying eggs. She laid one at a time two weeks apart from each other. The first one she stepped on and cracked. I was able to save the other two and put them in an incubator. The first egg I saved has been in there for almost 16 weeks. The other one is obviously two weeks behind that one. It really doesn’t look like they have changed at all. I haven’t candled them because I was afraid I would disturb something.

Is all of this normal? Will they be fertile? If not, will she eventually lay fertile eggs? I keep the male separate because he won’t leave her alone most of the time and I don’t want to stress her out. I put them together a few times a week for a few hours. I want to have hatchlings but want it to be safe for her too and make sure she is not egg bound.

Thanks for any help!


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## Yvonne G

Usually eggs laid on top of the ground aren't fertile, but who knows?


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## Phillipspdx

Yvonne G said:


> Usually eggs laid on top of the ground aren't fertile, but who knows?


She dug a burrow and I watched her lay them and grabbed the last two before she could cover them.


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## Stoneman

Update, there has been zero growth in the two months of incubating, so i am going to turn of the incubator , hopefully better luck next time.


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## Kvantex

Yvonne G said:


> No, I doubt they're any good. But there's always hope. I hate to toss eggs.


9


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## Jess Jess

Yvonne G said:


> Since I have a good example of each in my incubator right now I thought I'd post it so you can see the difference. Hopefully the picture shows it good enough.
> 
> The eggs on the lower left are fertile. Notice how white they are. When we talk about "chalking" this is what we're talking about.
> 
> The eggs on the upper right are sort of translucent and not white. These are not fertile and haven't chalked.
> 
> View attachment 182727


How long after the eggs are laid can you tell if they’re fertile or not?


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## Yvonne G

You should see blood vessels in a couple weeks


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## Jess Jess

Yvonne G said:


> You should see blood vessels in a couple weeks


Thank you! Tomorrow is two weeks so keeping my fingers crossed ?


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