Leopard tortoise fertile eggs?

[Lelanie barnard]

Please assist. Tortoise laid 8 eggs 7 days ago. How soon will i be able to tell whether they are fertile? What/when would i be able to see first signs? What would be best to incubate them temps etc? Im seeing alot of info on internet but not sure as im finding alot of diff advice.

 

[Tom]

Please assist. Tortoise laid 8 eggs 7 days ago. How soon will i be able to tell whether they are fertile? What/when would i be able to see first signs? What would be best to incubate them temps etc? Im seeing alot of info on internet but not sure as im finding alot of diff advice.

If this is a South African leopard and not a leopard from some other part of the continent, then I'd leave them be. They will not begin to develop without a diapause. They have to cool for a while before you can incubate them. Usually, they would stay in the ground all winter long, all through spring, and then they'd begin to incubate when the ground warmed up the next summer. Whenthey lay in summer, those eggs will not begin to develop until the following summer.

If you've already dug them up, then you can try chilling them to about 15-16C for two or three months, then a week at room temp, then into an incubator at around 86 degrees. I know of no one that has good success with artificial incubation of these over here, and I'm doing expereimcnet every year to try and figure it out. Let us know what you do and how well it works.

This will help:

How To Incubate Eggs And Start Hatchlings

I put my eggs in a plastic shoe box with a lid on it and put the shoe box in the incubator. You can drill a couple of very small holes around the top of the container, but not on the lid. I use vermiculite as an incubation media. I mix it in a 1 : 1 ratio with water by weight for Sulcatas and...

tortoiseforum.org

 

[Lelanie barnard]

Thanks for the advice. We had to remove them from the nest as our dogs started digging them up. I will store them in my cupboard for the upcoming winter months.