Young Burmese Star laying eggs!

Markw84

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That’s awesome congrats to you as well Mark.

This one is from the first clutch. So yes it was diapaused at room temp for one month. Took 75 days after diapause and a total of 112 days from the date it was laid.

What is your method? And/or methods? For incubating them?

Gus, This clutch for me was laid while I was on vacation. SO the eggs remained in the ground 6 days before I got home to dig them up. That started their "natural" diapause!. My girls were still outside as this clutch was laid Sept 27. I used the room temp - 1 week - 63° 4 weeks - room temp 1 week - incubate at 88° recipe. The wine cooler was a few degrees cooler than I originally set out so I got 63° instead of the planned 65°. So much longer than your eggs took! I am of the thinking that the temperature of the female the weeks before she lays has a lot to do with the need for and type of diapause, as well as the length of time incubating. I also have a hunch that effects the TSD as well.

My contact in Mayanmar tells me the eggs laid early season - late Nov and Dec - take much longer to hatch since the clutches laid in late Jan and into Feb also still hatch with all the others the beginning of May. Some late clutches really have no diapause at all and hatch in 90 days. This is out of more than 1000 babies, so a pretty good sampling!

What was the temperatures your females were kept prior and up to laying this clutch? Since mine were outside and still using the night box, they normally are most active in the evenings and out with temps well into the low 70°s, before going into the night box. Very much like winter in Mayanmar.

My later clutches when I moved the females inside for the winter I used a diapause in an incubator that was set to go up to 78° every morning and then go off every afternoon at 4PM to cool to my room temp of 69° overnight. I left them in there 6 weeks, then incubated at 88.5°. I tried to copy the temp variations a nest would go through in Mayanmar but still went much cooler than my data says nests there would experience.
 

G-stars

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Gus, This clutch for me was laid while I was on vacation. SO the eggs remained in the ground 6 days before I got home to dig them up. That started their "natural" diapause!. My girls were still outside as this clutch was laid Sept 27. I used the room temp - 1 week - 63° 4 weeks - room temp 1 week - incubate at 88° recipe. The wine cooler was a few degrees cooler than I originally set out so I got 63° instead of the planned 65°. So much longer than your eggs took! I am of the thinking that the temperature of the female the weeks before she lays has a lot to do with the need for and type of diapause, as well as the length of time incubating. I also have a hunch that effects the TSD as well.

My contact in Mayanmar tells me the eggs laid early season - late Nov and Dec - take much longer to hatch since the clutches laid in late Jan and into Feb also still hatch with all the others the beginning of May. Some late clutches really have no diapause at all and hatch in 90 days. This is out of more than 1000 babies, so a pretty good sampling!

What was the temperatures your females were kept prior and up to laying this clutch? Since mine were outside and still using the night box, they normally are most active in the evenings and out with temps well into the low 70°s, before going into the night box. Very much like winter in Mayanmar.

My later clutches when I moved the females inside for the winter I used a diapause in an incubator that was set to go up to 78° every morning and then go off every afternoon at 4PM to cool to my room temp of 69° overnight. I left them in there 6 weeks, then incubated at 88.5°. I tried to copy the temp variations a nest would go through in Mayanmar but still went much cooler than my data says nests there would experience.

That’s good to know, I used something similar to what you did for the 3rd clutch so I’m hopeful that will work as well. I believe that diapause has something to do with temp sexing. Only time will tell I guess and some good record keeping.

My stars both Sri Lankan and burmese are kept outdoors year round now that they are adults. She laid the first clutch on November 4th. If I remember correctly temps were 60-80? They all have a heated enclosure which I put them into at night during the winter time or if it’s too cold outside/ raining/ no sunlight. But it’s mostly sunny here even when it gets into the 50’s where basking temps get up into the 80’s.

Since I did a different diapause for the other clutches I won’t know if your theory is correct or not regarding the the temperatures the female was exposed to prior to laying and how long it takes for them to hatch. Have you verified this with your females?
 

G-stars

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Just a quick update. The first clutch are hatching, but apparently my female decided she wasn’t done for the season and decided to surprise me today with 12 more eggs. That puts her at 38 eggs from November to mid March and this was her first year egg laying. I think she’s done after this one but who knows.
 

mrnewberry

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Just a quick update. The first clutch are hatching, but apparently my female decided she wasn’t done for the season and decided to surprise me today with 12 more eggs. That puts her at 38 eggs from November to mid March and this was her first year egg laying. I think she’s done after this one but who knows.

She had quite the first year!
 

turtlesteve

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If you guys don't mind me asking, what was the straight carapace length of these females when they started laying? Is carapace length or weight a better indicator?
Thanks,
Steve
 

G-stars

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If you guys don't mind me asking, what was the straight carapace length of these females when they started laying? Is carapace length or weight a better indicator?
Thanks,
Steve

Last I checked she was at least 10”, probably close to 11”. But I would go by weight instead. On November of 2016 she was 900g, fast forward 2 years later when she began laying in November of 2018 at 3600g.

Hope that answers your questions. Let me know if you have any more, I’d be happy to answer.
 

Markw84

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If you guys don't mind me asking, what was the straight carapace length of these females when they started laying? Is carapace length or weight a better indicator?
Thanks,
Steve
With Burmese Stars (G platynota) the females seem to start laying as soon as 2500g if they are grown fairly slowly and thus older. In our optimal environments with faster growth, they will start laying about 3000g which can be their 4th year. A healthy 3000g female will be just over 10" SCL. A 3000g female will lay smaller eggs. No problem, just smaller hatchlings. A 4000-5000g female will lay much larger eggs on average and thus produce about 26g - 28g hatchlings.
 

Markw84

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Looking great, Gus!!

I also saw a great difference is size among the eggs and then - the corresponding hatchlings. The eggs ranged from the smallest weighing 19.7g to the largest at 37.8g. So the hatchlings ranged from the smallest at 12.5g to the largest at 28.6g. No matter what size the hatchling, they all do pretty closely to the same as far as growth rate for me. The smallest went from 12.9g at hatching to 29.4g in its first 6 weeks. So a 135% wt gain. The largest went from 28.6g to 59.2g in its first 6 weeks - so a 106% gain. I got 44 hatchlings in total this year and all of them averaged doubling their weight in about 5-6 weeks no matter what size they were at hatching.
 

Michael231

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Congrats with getting so many eggs this year! It’s incredible that your first year female has already laid 38 eggs.

What gets me is how long it takes platynota to dig and cover their nest. One of my females started digging around 12:30 pm and was just beginning the nest covering process around 5:30 pm. I’m not familiar with any other tortoises where it takes this long...
 

G-stars

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Looking great, Gus!!

I also saw a great difference is size among the eggs and then - the corresponding hatchlings. The eggs ranged from the smallest weighing 19.7g to the largest at 37.8g. So the hatchlings ranged from the smallest at 12.5g to the largest at 28.6g. No matter what size the hatchling, they all do pretty closely to the same as far as growth rate for me. The smallest went from 12.9g at hatching to 29.4g in its first 6 weeks. So a 135% wt gain. The largest went from 28.6g to 59.2g in its first 6 weeks - so a 106% gain. I got 44 hatchlings in total this year and all of them averaged doubling their weight in about 5-6 weeks no matter what size they were at hatching.


Thanks Mark, I also noticed the same thing. Most will double their hatching weight by 6 weeks old. I’m currently at 22 hatchlings with the last clutch of 12 eggs now beginning to hatch.
 

G-stars

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Congrats with getting so many eggs this year! It’s incredible that your first year female has already laid 38 eggs.

What gets me is how long it takes platynota to dig and cover their nest. One of my females started digging around 12:30 pm and was just beginning the nest covering process around 5:30 pm. I’m not familiar with any other tortoises where it takes this long...


Yes I was pleasantly surprised to get 38 eggs from her in her first year of egg laying and even more surprised that most of those eggs were fertile and have hatched.

Yes they do take a long time from beginning to end to finish up, but that’s a good thing for me. As it means that there’s less of a chance that I will miss a nest.
 

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