From Hawaii With Love; Long Distance Incubation

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Balboa

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Paul and I had another crazy idea for an experiment... go figure.

Tortoise eggs don't "set" for something like 48 hours after laying to the point that you can no longer move them. Maybe if they were sent next day air the morning following laying, they could survive and be incubated. This seemed a much easier way to "transport" babies, in vitro. We consulted a few "eggsperts" who all seemed to think it should work, so decided to go ahead with it.

What do you know, Pauls torts caught on to us. No way were they going to let him ship their babies 2600 miles. They each repeatedly laid on the weekend when the eggs couldn't be shipped quickly enough.

Finally after 3 weekend layings in a row, this female cooperated.
Momma.jpg

She popped these out monday night at about 10:30pm Hawaii time.
Eggs.jpg

And about 1 pm, wedneday this box showed up at my door.
Arrival.jpg

Paul had individually packed each of 5 premium "selected" eggs in its own deli cup packed full of vermiculite. I carefully dug down in each cup and found the eggs had all but one tilted a little off the "x straight up" but not too bad.
Safe.jpg

carefully lifted them out, popped them in the shoebox and into the incubator.
shoebox.jpg

Hopefully Paul will add some pics of the expecting fathers soon. We're going to follow the developement of the entire clutch, half in hawaii, half in washington. Hopefully in about 100 days we'll have some lovely leopards hatch, 2600 miles from where they were laid.
 

dmmj

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Now we have the long 100 plus day wait. Because you know eggs never hatch on time.
 

ChiKat

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Very cool!! Can't wait to see pics when they hatch :)
 

Jacqui

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Interesting! I had wondered about something like this before, but not from Hawaii. I wondered how the Ag departments and such feel about eggs, as compared to shipping the tortoises themselves.
 

Neal

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dmmj said:
Now we have the long 100 plus day wait. Because you know eggs never hatch on time.

You're telling me. Just had a leopard hatch out last night...230 days incubating, lol.

This is cool, let us know when they start chalking up.
 
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Scooter

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Very interesting idea, can't wait to see how they turn out!
 

Tim/Robin

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A very interesting concept. I am with you, I can't see why it would not work. Now for the long wait for the results.
 

John

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Ha THE GREAT EGGSPERIMENT. Wonder if the altitude of the flight could have any effect on the eggs. Probably not, I remember doing a similar thing once when I was older, not sure of the year but it was shortly before I converted from sagitarius to taurus.Anyway I shipped a bunch of garter snake eggs to Russia, Siberia to be excact, I've been told they all hatched and were released into the wild and are doing well. P.S. You may wanna get spell check,experts is clearly mispelled.:cool: :D
 

ticothetort2

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Very cool, so do breeders sell eggs off normally or is it more of if you know somebody? And if they do, what would the normal price be to purchase?

I always thought it would be cool to really start from the beginning and watch them start from the zero hour.
 

yagyujubei

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People have been shipping fertile eggs for years with good results. No reason these should be any different. Usually, they're wrapped individually with bubble wrap. These should be fine.
 

Balboa

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LOL
We were expecting SOMEBODY to come in and say its been done, not surprised, just nobody we talked to had ever heard of it being done.

Thanks for all the comments folks :)
 

Missy

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I have ordered chicken and peacock eggs in the past with good luck so I dont see why this would not work. Good luck.
 

Kristina

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I have also had many bird eggs shipped over the years, but the difference is with fowl eggs you are REQUIRED to change the position. With tortoises eggs, changing the position destroys the fetus. Totally different circumstances.

Can't wait to see the result!
 

ticothetort2

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So is it common practice to sell eggs? I wouldn't mind trying to hatch my own from eggs. If anyone knows of anyone who sells eggs let me know. thanks.
 

Edna

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squamata said:
Ha THE GREAT EGGSPERIMENT. Wonder if the altitude of the flight could have any effect on the eggs. Probably not, I remember doing a similar thing once when I was older, not sure of the year but it was shortly before I converted from sagitarius to taurus.Anyway I shipped a bunch of garter snake eggs to Russia, Siberia to be excact, I've been told they all hatched and were released into the wild and are doing well. P.S. You may wanna get spell check,experts is clearly mispelled.:cool: :D

Can't resist, have to bite!!! How eggsactly did you convert from sagitarius to taurus????

Oh, uh, never mind. I think I got it LOL :D
 

onarock

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Dont know if anyone actually sells eggs. In the name of science :p I donated these eggs to Balboa. Got my fingers crossed Balboa. I'll start taking a peek at the other 6 sometime next week.

ticothetort2 said:
So is it common practice to sell eggs? I wouldn't mind trying to hatch my own from eggs. If anyone knows of anyone who sells eggs let me know. thanks.
 
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