Found some eggs

[Fungooli]

Well sometime in the middle of Jan, I built a 3 foot deep penthouse in my inside sully pen cause I had a feeling my female wanted to drop some eggs in the winter. Now 6 months later with the torts outside for the summer, I was taking this penthouse down thinking it was a waste of time even building it. After removing about 6-12" of dirt, I found about 15-16 ping pong balls. Still can't figure out how she dug, filled this hole and had these eggs without me noticing. Being my first time and not knowing about the eggs, 13 look pretty good and I got them in the incubator, 3 or so were broke. Have no idea what's going on inside them yet, but figure I'll spray them with water to eventually clean em up and see what happens. I'm guessing the eggs are anywhere between 2 and 5 months old. The dirt in the pen was pretty dry but like I said, they were 6 to 12 inches down. Any thoughts on whether they may still be good or not?

 

[Jabuticaba]

Oh, wow! Hope there's still hope for them. Good luck!


May[CHERRY BLOSSOM], Darwin[TURTLE] & Wallace[TURTLE]
Winnipeg, Canada

 

[SANDRA_MEISSNEST]

Did u try to candle them?

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[Fungooli]

Did u try to candle them?

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Haven't candled yet as I have to read up some more on candling. I did hit them in the incubator with a flashlight and not sure if it was a reflection or not but it seems like most of them (not all) under the light have a 1/4 inch spot on them that seems to glow under the light. And spots were on different locations on the eggs, (top, upper side, etc).

 

[Tom]

Probably still good. Do NOT spray them with water. The dirt won't hurt anything. They will take about 90-95 days to hatch at 88 degrees. If this is her first clutch you can expect low fertility, but not always.

 

[Fungooli]

Probably still good. Do NOT spray them with water. The dirt won't hurt anything. They will take about 90-95 days to hatch at 88 degrees. If this is her first clutch you can expect low fertility, but not always.

Gotcha Tom, Thanx, my biggest concerns are since they were a surprise at least 2 or 3 of them were rotated or moved around pretty good before I noticed them, the ones taken from the main clutch pile, once I found it, were handled pretty decent. I'm sitting at a steady 88 degrees but my humidity is 97 with the probe in the shoe box itself rather than the incubator. My vermiculite was mixed 50/50 weight wise from one of your posts I read awhile back and my shoe box has enough holes. When I was collecting them and when I open the styrofoam incubator lid, I can smell what I'm guessing is maybe 1 or 2 bad ones. I'm hoping I can smell out or somehow isolate the bad ones in maybe a week when I attempt a candling for my first time. Really don't want to handle them too much. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what this chalking I read about is. Some of the eggs had rough surfaces but not sure if it was this chalking or just dirt. A few days after I put my torts out in their new pen for summer, the female dug another hole and I was thinking she was just trying to burrow under the fence by the way the hole was dug. Now I'm thinking since she hasn't tried it again that maybe I ought to explore that spot for eggs too. The guy who I got the torts from said she dropped some eggs last year for the first time but not in a nest.

 

[Fungooli]

UPDATE....Went through my 13 eggs today and found 4 bad ones, other 9 seem to be nice. Opened the incubator as I noticed some small bugs or flies in there. When checking, the bad smell was gone and actually found one with a couple maggots and 3 that were cracked and empty.
Looked out my window today and seen my girl Jazz sitting in a hole. Removed the male and couldn't really reach into the hole, didn't want to scare her. Waited til she was done and covered the hole, then went in there and came out with 16 sweet, fresh Sully eggs, carefully lifted and marked and in the incubator.

Probably still good. Do NOT spray them with water. The dirt won't hurt anything. They will take about 90-95 days to hatch at 88 degrees. If this is her first clutch you can expect low fertility, but not always.

Gotcha Tom, Thanx, my biggest concerns are since they were a surprise at least 2 or 3 of them were rotated or moved around pretty good before I noticed them, the ones taken from the main clutch pile, once I found it, were handled pretty decent. I'm sitting at a steady 88 degrees but my humidity is 97 with the probe in the shoe box itself rather than the incubator. My vermiculite was mixed 50/50 weight wise from one of your posts I read awhile back and my shoe box has enough holes. When I was collecting them and when I open the styrofoam incubator lid, I can smell what I'm guessing is maybe 1 or 2 bad ones. I'm hoping I can smell out or somehow isolate the bad ones in maybe a week when I attempt a candling for my first time. Really don't want to handle them too much. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what this chalking I read about is. Some of the eggs had rough surfaces but not sure if it was this chalking or just dirt. A few days after I put my torts out in their new pen for summer, the female dug another hole and I was thinking she was just trying to burrow under the fence by the way the hole was dug. Now I'm thinking since she hasn't tried it again that maybe I ought to explore that spot for eggs too. The guy who I got the torts from said she dropped some eggs last year for the first time but not in a nest.

 

[Greg T]

And the fun begins! Once they start breeding, they don't stop. It is fantastic to watch them hatch out though!!

Your setup sounds great, so just put the eggs in there and watch them. Also get ready to house the babies once they start popping out of those eggs!