Haven't checked in in a while. I have just been working on consolidating and organizing my tortoise setups. I bought some steel 36"x18"x72" shelves, used one split in half to create two 36" tall pedestals so that my 6'x30"x18" red foot enclosure could 'stack' above my russian enclosure of the same size. Then I put another one set up normally (6' tall) at the end as a nice shelf to keep the incubator and hatchling enclosures). I managed to condense about 14'x3' of tortoise enclosures into less than 8'x3', and now it is more organized as well, with nice storage spots.
The eggs are hatching quite regularly now. I currently have three from one clutch that are waiting around to get a little more size before I sell them (one to a private customer and the other two wholesale). One of them has an extra scute, so the temperature in the incubator may have jumped a little at some point to cause that deformation, but they are all eating a ton and doing great so he should still sell. Then I have a single one from a clutch of two and he is ENORMOUS for a hatchling. He is younger than the other three and by a couple of weeks, yet he is about twice the size (and was from the start). I usually wait until they are about 6-8 weeks old to sell them wholesale, and for private sale I wait a little longer to make sure the tortoise is doing well. Financially, if the tortoises can support themselves that is an obvious benefit, but mostly I just feel really good about what I'm doing. Bringing captive bred russians into the trade will continue to help alleviate the stress on wild populations, and it is pretty cool that I was able to come up with a good system for breeding them indoors with minimal effort.
I'll have to get some pictures at some point. I'm hoping to build them a slightly larger enclosure when I eventually move (hopefully within the next year), but my quartet is really doing quite well in their relatively small quarters. They eat, bask, breed, dig, and do everything I would expect them to do.
Just thought I would check in and give an update. My success rate hatching eggs is going up a little every few months, so I am hoping that at some point I will reach close to 100%. I did manage to accidentally find a couple of nests I didn't know about over the weekend when I was moving things around, so I lost a couple of eggs there, and a couple more are questionable (they may have turned when I disturbed them while digging in their dirt). I did dig up a good nest the other day though, so I'm hopeful that I will get a few more by the end of the year.h
The eggs are hatching quite regularly now. I currently have three from one clutch that are waiting around to get a little more size before I sell them (one to a private customer and the other two wholesale). One of them has an extra scute, so the temperature in the incubator may have jumped a little at some point to cause that deformation, but they are all eating a ton and doing great so he should still sell. Then I have a single one from a clutch of two and he is ENORMOUS for a hatchling. He is younger than the other three and by a couple of weeks, yet he is about twice the size (and was from the start). I usually wait until they are about 6-8 weeks old to sell them wholesale, and for private sale I wait a little longer to make sure the tortoise is doing well. Financially, if the tortoises can support themselves that is an obvious benefit, but mostly I just feel really good about what I'm doing. Bringing captive bred russians into the trade will continue to help alleviate the stress on wild populations, and it is pretty cool that I was able to come up with a good system for breeding them indoors with minimal effort.
I'll have to get some pictures at some point. I'm hoping to build them a slightly larger enclosure when I eventually move (hopefully within the next year), but my quartet is really doing quite well in their relatively small quarters. They eat, bask, breed, dig, and do everything I would expect them to do.
Just thought I would check in and give an update. My success rate hatching eggs is going up a little every few months, so I am hoping that at some point I will reach close to 100%. I did manage to accidentally find a couple of nests I didn't know about over the weekend when I was moving things around, so I lost a couple of eggs there, and a couple more are questionable (they may have turned when I disturbed them while digging in their dirt). I did dig up a good nest the other day though, so I'm hopeful that I will get a few more by the end of the year.h
Sounds like things are going very well!
