Finding hatchlings

[allegraf]

Look what my husband found this morning in the garden! What a great way to start the day. I guess we missed a clutch. I am not sure how old it is, but the egg tooth is a little nub and the egg sac totally absorbed. Does this make it a wild caught florida redfoot? Haha! Just kidding, I am not trying to open up a debate.

 

[Itort]

Talk about luck. Congrats

 

[kimber_lee_314]

It's like finding a treasure! Congratulations!

 

[elegans]

I have "found" 4 different species that hatched on their own when I missed a clutch. I never intend to but always still fun. Congrats Douglas

 

[allegraf]

I figured we missed some clutches this year since the many cold fronts meant the torts came in for extended periods of time. It definitely messed up the normal egg laying schedule for the girls. It was kind of nice to know it survived the cold snaps here in Florida. I thought for sure any clutches we missed would have died.

 

[PATMAN]

What a wonderful suprize! Congrats!
Thanks for sharing the great pics too!

 

[Bryan]

What a beautiful orange cherryhead Allegra! Did you sell all of your other hatchlings already?

 

[terryo]

Imagine going out in your garden and finding that!!! Wow!

 

[allegraf]

We have 7 hatchlings that are ready to go, some that are too young and many more eggs still cooking. Some people have expressed interest so we will let them have first choice before posting any ads.

 

[Kristina]

What an awesome find, lol. You certainly never see anything like that around here!

 

[cdmay]

This is a significant event Allegra.
Being a redfoot keeper and finding a hatchling redfoot in one's yard in South Florida is not unusual.
But finding a young hatchling that had endured THREE nights of freezing temperatures plus TWO WEEKS of nights into the upper 30s or low 40s is not something you would expect. In the case of your hatchling it had either already hatched before the January 10th thru 12th freezes or, it was still an incubating egg in the ground during that harsh (for us) weather.
For me this beats the time I found that 3 or 4 inch juvenile wandering in my next door neighbor's front yard after it must have lived through at least two of our winters that saw temperatures in the upper 30s for a few nights in each of those years.
Now I will be checking my yard to see if I had any feral hatchlings emerge too.

 

[egyptiandan]

Very nice

From the looks of it, it looks to be a month or two old to me.

Danny

 

[ChiKat]

Soo cute! I wish I found a tortoise in my yard

 

[allegraf]

The little bugger has buried itself deep into the mulch and now taught all of the other one how to dig and get dirty. I put him in with the other hatchlings that are around the same age/size and when I looked an hour later, 5 were missing. Then I noticed some suspicious round mounds that were not there before. I had to dig them out to make sure they were all in there. The other angels were not doing that before!

 

[Bryan]

We have 7 hatchlings that are ready to go, some that are too young and many more eggs still cooking. Some people have expressed interest so we will let them have first choice before posting any ads.

I'd love to see some pics of some of your younger ones, I might look at picking up one from you in 2-3 months time.

This is a significant event Allegra.
Being a redfoot keeper and finding a hatchling redfoot in one's yard in South Florida is not unusual.
But finding a young hatchling that had endured THREE nights of freezing temperatures plus TWO WEEKS of nights into the upper 30s or low 40s is not something you would expect. In the case of your hatchling it had either already hatched before the January 10th thru 12th freezes or, it was still an incubating egg in the ground during that harsh (for us) weather.
For me this beats the time I found that 3 or 4 inch juvenile wandering in my next door neighbor's front yard after it must have lived through at least two of our winters that saw temperatures in the upper 30s for a few nights in each of those years.
Now I will be checking my yard to see if I had any feral hatchlings emerge too.

Agreed Carl, this shows just how resilient they can be and is of great significance. Luckily the ground didn't have a hard freeze like it does in the Northern US.

The little bugger has buried itself deep into the mulch and now taught all of the other one how to dig and get dirty. I put him in with the other hatchlings that are around the same age/size and when I looked an hour later, 5 were missing. Then I noticed some suspicious round mounds that were not there before. I had to dig them out to make sure they were all in there. The other angels were not doing that before!

He's corrupting them! He might start organizing them to start breaking legs of the other ones in exchange for mango's

 

[Traveller]

That's so neat to "find" a tort in the backyard!
It would never happen around here, or I should say it would be a very rare
occurrence.
I've had to move baby toads and baby birds out of the way of the lawntractor,
but not a turtle or tort.

 

[Stephanie Logan]

Congratulations on your unexpected foundling!

It seems like people do so much with incubators, being careful of temp, light and humidity, and then out pops a rogue hatchling that made it onto the scene without any human intervention at all. It's as if Mother Nature is reminding you that she can hatch a tortoise or two herself!

 

[Tom]

I have a friend out in here in Riverside, CA that had the same thing happen with a sulcata. It gets below freezing out there nearly every night in the winter. These tortoises we keep are amazing. We have so much more to learn.

Congrats on the new "naturally incubated" baby.

 

[pugsandkids]

What a fantastic find! Congrats on your newest addition. I love that he's teaching the others the "ways of the wild"