emys laying eggs

[wijaya]

I just join the forum a while ago, this is my first thread,
anyway my name is Ed from Medan, Indonesia. I am living in tropical climate,
with relative humidity at 60 - 90% and the temperature range at 25 - 38 Celcius,
with quite a lot of rainfall.

I recently bought a pair of mature emys, length of around 50 cm weighing
approximately 10 kg. And only having them for about a month, I keep them on the
roof top of my house (approximate roaming area is 9 meter by 25 meter) and we
are having lots of fruit trees, shrubs, flowering plants and so on, so the area
is constantly misted with automated system for my plants. I made a shallow pit
filled with lots of hays under my plant table and beside that I have a shallow
pond of water for them to dip.

And to my surprise this morning the female is starting to build the nest, and by
afternoon she laid eggs. When I came back from office this evening, I noticed
the female is buried under the hays probably guarding the eggs.

Now, I need advice to let the eggs hatch naturally under the mother care of
should I picked the eggs and hatch it manually in incubator? Any suggestion and
in sight is much appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Ed:

Because of where you live, I would think leaving them in the nest might be the best option. But you must keep an eye on the nest. Once she gets out of guarding mode, they might both decide that that great big pile of stuff is a nice place to sleep. If they both continue to crowd the nest, they might crush the eggs.

Here in Central California, I have to harvest all the eggs because we have a problem with red ants and its so dry here.

Let us know what you decide to do.

And I'd love to see some pictures of your tortoises and the nest.

 

[wijaya]

Until now still undecided, as I read from chelonia.org care sheet in one instance the female stayed guarding the eggs for 20 days, for my case I will just monitor them closely see how it goes, I probably have to remove all the other turtles living together with them for temporary (will they harmed the eggs?) Also do I need to separate the male?

I will post some pictures later on the emys and the nest, currently I don't have any pictures, I will try to snap a few this weekend.

 

[Yvonne G]

I have tried it both ways. At first I kept male and female together all the time. Then one year I separated them, only putting them together to breed. And now, they're back in the same habitat together. But my habitat is very large. They have a heated shed, a covered area outside the shed about 15' square, then a rain forest-like yard about 56' x 24' So, they have plenty of room to get away from each other, and lots of plants and trees as sight barriers.

Just curious...is your pair emys phayrei or emys emys?

 

[wijaya]

Mine are pair of emys emys from the pectoral scutes.

 

[wijaya]

@Yvonne, here are some pics on my emys pair:
This pic taken when they first arrived at home, bath and brush them:

This is the under-table nest to be, stacked with hays and further front a small water pond/hole for them to dip in:

Happily sitting in the nest in the hot day:

Thanks for viewing, any input is welcome.

 

[Yvonne G]

Very nice, Ed!

It looks like your female has been through a trauma of some sort. Was she burned?

The tortoises are a pretty nice-looking pair. She didn't build a very big nest. When my emys buids a nest, its about 2 and a half feet tall and about 5 feet around. Did you actually see the eggs?

 

[wijaya]

Hi Yvonne, thank you.

The one with scar on the carapace is the male - losing part of scutes on the lower end, was like that when I bring him home, as for female also not perfect specimen, she was without finger and nails on the left rear foot. Well just providing all the love for this pair even though they are not perfect.

For the eggs, I think false alarm, no eggs around. The female was showing different behavior, so we thought she is going to labor, and yes the nest is too small probably, did some changes added some coco peat on the bottom of that box and stacking up more hays now. I will keep you updated.

Ed