I had just one single cherryhead egg left to hatch from this past egg laying season. The other three eggs from the clutch that this egg came from had hatched a couple of weeks ago into perfectly nice little neonates. The one egg that remained was one of those that have extra blobs of calcium on it and in my experience these eggs are often not fertile, or at least don't develop.
But two days ago I was happily surprised to see that the egg had begun to hatch and in fact, the neonate inside had poked a hole right at the point where some of the extra calcium was...
This morning I checked the egg and noticed that something seemed a bit off. I could see the hatchling's head sticking out of the egg but then I could also see a foot right by the head. I've hatched a couple of tortoise eggs before and I know my tortoise anatomy pretty well so this made me worried that I might have a really deformed neonate emerging. Then I saw a head protruding from the opposite side of the egg. So I picked a bit of the shell away for a better look and found this...
Twins. I've hatched a set of twins once before but they emerged from a double egg that looked like a giant peanut. These two were jammed inside a normal egg and I worried that they may have trouble coming out by themselves. I so I picked a bit more...
They both appeared to be OK but something still seemed 'wrong' with what I was looking at. So I decided at that point to simply remove them from the egg altogether. I turned the egg over into my cupped palm and this is what spilled out into it...
What the...?! Triplets? And all three were alive too...
They are all joined at the same point of their yolk sac but it appears that they will separate OK. So with the help of my wife Barb we got them into some damp paper towels and placed them into a plastic bowl after which they went back into the incubator. So far, they are alive and I think they might all make it.
But two days ago I was happily surprised to see that the egg had begun to hatch and in fact, the neonate inside had poked a hole right at the point where some of the extra calcium was...
This morning I checked the egg and noticed that something seemed a bit off. I could see the hatchling's head sticking out of the egg but then I could also see a foot right by the head. I've hatched a couple of tortoise eggs before and I know my tortoise anatomy pretty well so this made me worried that I might have a really deformed neonate emerging. Then I saw a head protruding from the opposite side of the egg. So I picked a bit of the shell away for a better look and found this...
Twins. I've hatched a set of twins once before but they emerged from a double egg that looked like a giant peanut. These two were jammed inside a normal egg and I worried that they may have trouble coming out by themselves. I so I picked a bit more...
They both appeared to be OK but something still seemed 'wrong' with what I was looking at. So I decided at that point to simply remove them from the egg altogether. I turned the egg over into my cupped palm and this is what spilled out into it...
What the...?! Triplets? And all three were alive too...
They are all joined at the same point of their yolk sac but it appears that they will separate OK. So with the help of my wife Barb we got them into some damp paper towels and placed them into a plastic bowl after which they went back into the incubator. So far, they are alive and I think they might all make it.
wowwie! and they are sooo cute too 
