# Advice on incubating leopard tortoise eggs



## Usamah (Jan 14, 2019)

I am looking for advice regarding incubating leopard tortoise eggs. What incubator should I get? What temperature is optimal to produce more females? How should I go about incubating the eggs?


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## Yvonne G (Jan 14, 2019)

I started out with the Little Giant Bird Brooder, and it worked well for me for many years and many hatches! But then a friend gave me a Zoo Med Reptibator. Oh Man!!! I LOVE that incubator. It is the same size as the Little Giant, but it's made differently and accommodates taller egg receptacles.

I think this one was an Exo Terra. I didn't like it at all and gave it away:



This is the Reptibator on the left and the Little Giant on the right:




As you can see, because of the configuration of them, you can't put tall containers into the Little Giant.






But you CAN in the Reptibator. I have found plastic shoe box type containers that fit nicely side by side in the Reptibator, and I can put many more eggs into the shoe boxes than I can fit in the Little Giant.


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## Yvonne G (Jan 14, 2019)

I like to cover my eggs. I used to bury them in the vermiculite, but have recently changed to settling the eggs in vermiculite, then lightly covering them with moistened sphagnum moss. I set the incubator for around 85F degrees. That goes up and down a bit due to the temperature in the room where the incubators are. The vermiculite is slightly moistened, and I occasionally spritz the moss to keep it moist. There is no guarantee for males or females, but the higher temperature is supposed to get female.


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## Yvonne G (Jan 14, 2019)

The SA leopard eggs are supposed to have a diapause. For this I use the formula 30 days at room temperature, 30 days at 65F degrees, 30 days at 60F degrees, 30 days at 65F degrees, 30 days at room temperature then into the incubator at 85F degrees.


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