baby leopard tortoises

Yvonne G

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Well, January 22 my rescue Babcock from Cincinnati dug a nest and deposited 10 eggs in it. They started hatching on May 1st and as of today, all of them have hatched. One broke through before all the veins had dried up and it bled to death, but all the others are fine. One of them has what looks like a very small not alive twin attached to the umbilical, but the bigger of the two is fine. I'm going to try to tie off the umbilical and hopefully the twin will drop off without causing a problem to the other baby.

leopard babies 06-07-14 a.jpg leopard babies 06-07-14 b.jpg parasitic twin 06-07-14.jpg

The picture with two babies in it are the one that hatched today plus the one with the twin. The twin hatched about a week ago. He's slightly smaller than the brand new baby. My camera doesn't do close-ups well, but the 'parasite' is showing his plastron as well as the alive baby is.
 

diamondbp

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Awesome. I just love some fresh hatched leopards
 

wellington

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Love me some leopard babies. Very interesting about the twins. Kinda glad they didn't both grow to size and both live, I think that's kinda sad and cruel. I would rather it happen like it did. Hope the live one will make it. Good luck with the separation, keep us posted.
 

bouaboua

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Awesome! ! ! Twin but no twin.

What are you going to do with all of them?
 

Justin C.

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Great job, the mother and babies are lucky there are people like to you out there.
I may contact Will in order to adopt 1 of them.
Again, thank you for all your hard work!
 

Yvonne G

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We tied off the umbilical cord that went between the live baby and its parasitic twin. Just overnight the umbilical shriveled and dried up. It was VERY interesting looking at that little baby. He was too small to see clearly, but you could see his legs and his plastron plainly, but when you flipped him over it just looked like a blob of tissue.

All the babies were eating and growing, and are now on their way south to San Diego!
 
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