Indian Star Incubation
- Thread starter kobe
- Start date
I personally would allow them to incubate naturally in your situation. Only because your very close to their wild habitat.
The problem with letting them incubate “naturally” is that you may not have an enclosure that allowed a natural selection of where to lay eggs. A tortoise constantly checks temps and humidity of the ground as they are looking to lay eggs. The exposure to the sun The slope of the terrain to prevent flooding. The amount of shade overhanging vegetation provides etc etc - is all very important. Even though you are in the native range you may not have an enclosure that allows for a site that would be chosen in the wild. I would not take that chance and would incubate in an more controlled setting unless your tortoise has an enclosure outside that allowed it to select an appropriate site.
If you have a big, natural outdoor enclosure, you could leave the eggs to ground hatch. That would be easier for you.
You need to be sure you do disturb the area and leave it natural and not irrigate/water it. You also should protect the nest from predators and put a cage or wire screen over the area and keep the babies from getting away as they hatch. Predators we have in the US that are problems are everything from skunks, raccoons, rats, fox, even ants. So that is a risk you need to protect against. The eggs will probably take anywhere from 100 - 150 days to hatch.
If you wish to incubate them indoors and better monitor conditions, then you would have to set up some type of incubator. The eggs will do best if you keep them between 30°-31°. You can read this for ideas on how to set them up:
https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-incubate-eggs-and-start-hatchlings.124266/
Oh... the garden you are talking about is an artificial garden on the 18th floor. If it were me, I would incubate the eggs artificially and set up an incubator. There is just too much different about the way soil heats in a garden bed as opposed to ground in the earth.
Look at the breeding section of the forum and there are posts on setting up an incubator as well as the post I referenced above from @Tom on incubation. Read through those and come back with your questions.
