Earlier this year William and I added a young adult pair of Manouria emys emys to our group. After quarantine I put the male by himself and the female in with my existing pair. She has been odd man out this whole time.
A couple days ago she lazily started moving debris around in the rain forest yard. Not real industrious, just hap hazardly. ANd today I noticed it was starting to look sort of like a nest, with quite a bit up against their west fence.*
Tonight as I was going around doing my evening chores I heard this terribly loud grunting coming from her yard. She was straining badly to release an egg. I went and got my stool and a bowl and sat down beside her, planning to act as mid-wife to a tortoise. I interject here for your edification that a female tortoise that's nesting gets 'in the zone' and hardly anything bothers her - she just doesn't notice what is going on around her. The first egg was completely past the body cavity, but it was still being held fast by the tissue around the cloaca, which wouldn't stretch enough to let go of the egg. So I took the nails on both my hands, one set on either side of the egg, and hooked them under that tissue, pulling it back towards her body. Out popped the egg. I did this five more times and finally the sixth egg popped out by itself.
I'm still not up to snuff since my accident, and it was getting painful for me to sit there in that position, so after 21 eggs, and since she seemed to be doing ok by herself, I gathered up my bowl of eggs and came in the house. I'll go out first thing in the a.m. and rescue any more she may have deposited.
*Interesting to note, she's not finished 'building' the nest. She moved a bit of leaves and dirt, I'd say about 6 or 8" of it, then dug a depression in it and started laying the eggs. After she's finished laying them she'll go back out into the yard and start scraping more leaves and dirt towards the nest, covering it up until it's a couple feet tall and maybe 4 or 5' around.
A couple days ago she lazily started moving debris around in the rain forest yard. Not real industrious, just hap hazardly. ANd today I noticed it was starting to look sort of like a nest, with quite a bit up against their west fence.*
Tonight as I was going around doing my evening chores I heard this terribly loud grunting coming from her yard. She was straining badly to release an egg. I went and got my stool and a bowl and sat down beside her, planning to act as mid-wife to a tortoise. I interject here for your edification that a female tortoise that's nesting gets 'in the zone' and hardly anything bothers her - she just doesn't notice what is going on around her. The first egg was completely past the body cavity, but it was still being held fast by the tissue around the cloaca, which wouldn't stretch enough to let go of the egg. So I took the nails on both my hands, one set on either side of the egg, and hooked them under that tissue, pulling it back towards her body. Out popped the egg. I did this five more times and finally the sixth egg popped out by itself.
I'm still not up to snuff since my accident, and it was getting painful for me to sit there in that position, so after 21 eggs, and since she seemed to be doing ok by herself, I gathered up my bowl of eggs and came in the house. I'll go out first thing in the a.m. and rescue any more she may have deposited.
*Interesting to note, she's not finished 'building' the nest. She moved a bit of leaves and dirt, I'd say about 6 or 8" of it, then dug a depression in it and started laying the eggs. After she's finished laying them she'll go back out into the yard and start scraping more leaves and dirt towards the nest, covering it up until it's a couple feet tall and maybe 4 or 5' around.