This was Mi-Shell's introduction thread:
tortoiseforum.org
I thought I had reported her death, but I did a search and couldn't find it, so I'll report it again.
I'm sorry to say that Mi-shell didn't make it through the winter '20/'21. When I opened the door to their hibernaculum Mi-Shell never came out, so I had to dig through all the leaves and open the lid. There she was, an empty shell with only one little mummified leg left to her body. Needless to say, I was devastated and guilty. I felt just awful. I set her shell on a chair on my front porch, and there she stayed all of last year up to now. I just didn't have the heart to bury her.
Fast forward to yesterday. My sister came from Oregon Monday night to bring me three Russian tortoises that someone gave her. As we were walking around yesterday looking at the animals, she said, "Is that Mi-Shell?" pointing to the shell on my front porch. So I picked her up to show Maggie and something white inside the shell caught my eye. I tilted her shell up and this huge egg rolled to the bottom. So, I was feeling guilty about her dying during hibernation, and when I realized this egg was huge, now I feel guilty that I didn't recognize the signs of being egg bound. Poor Mi-Shell. What pain she must have felt. What an awful thing to have to endure.
Desert tortoise eggs are about half that size. This thing is HUGE!
Mi-Shell
Mi-Shell has a special place in my heart, as she was pretty much my first tortoise. Oh, there were others before her. We had 'found' three or four of them at different times, wandering around our neighborhood. At that time we had about the same mind set as most people, and if one found a...
tortoiseforum.org
I thought I had reported her death, but I did a search and couldn't find it, so I'll report it again.
I'm sorry to say that Mi-shell didn't make it through the winter '20/'21. When I opened the door to their hibernaculum Mi-Shell never came out, so I had to dig through all the leaves and open the lid. There she was, an empty shell with only one little mummified leg left to her body. Needless to say, I was devastated and guilty. I felt just awful. I set her shell on a chair on my front porch, and there she stayed all of last year up to now. I just didn't have the heart to bury her.
Fast forward to yesterday. My sister came from Oregon Monday night to bring me three Russian tortoises that someone gave her. As we were walking around yesterday looking at the animals, she said, "Is that Mi-Shell?" pointing to the shell on my front porch. So I picked her up to show Maggie and something white inside the shell caught my eye. I tilted her shell up and this huge egg rolled to the bottom. So, I was feeling guilty about her dying during hibernation, and when I realized this egg was huge, now I feel guilty that I didn't recognize the signs of being egg bound. Poor Mi-Shell. What pain she must have felt. What an awful thing to have to endure.
Desert tortoise eggs are about half that size. This thing is HUGE!
