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Tom

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Question about how soon to feed. Do you feed the hatchlings immediately as they come out of the egg? Or do you wait until they've lost/consumed the yolk sac? I've heard varying opinions.

Thanks

They nibble as soon as they stick their head out of the shell. Even when they have a large yolk sac. This is why I won't use perlite for incubation. If they ingest perlite, it can literally kill them or greatly hamper their ability to thrive.

Within a day or two of leaving their egg, they begin to nibble. After 3-4 days they are eating. After a week, I have to put a pretty large pile of food in my brooder boxes with multiple babies and they eat it all up. This is why I will only use the damp paper towels for a day or two. They nibble on everything that is in the brooder box, so I make everything edible with grape leaves of plant ago as the "substrate".
 

diamondbp

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@Tom is the second clutch resembling the first clutch? Just curious if the different females are producing distinguishable babies or if they are pretty uniform so far?
 

Tom

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@Tom is the second clutch resembling the first clutch? Just curious if the different females are producing distinguishable babies or if they are pretty uniform so far?
They are all pretty uniform with minor variations. Just like the 6 dozen I bought form the source in 2010 and 2011.
 

Hermes

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Wow, that's actually awesome, it was actually because of you Tom that I decided to get into tortoises in the first place and although we had only talked briefly(or rather you gave me some advise lol) about 3 years ago I feel like I've known you for a while, because although I don't post much I've been creeping around here reading and taking in information for a while now. It was thanks to your advice that I was able to stop the pyramiding that Turbo had when I got him. anyways congrats on the great work!
 

fangnianli

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Sulcatas are usually around 90 days at 88 degrees. Leopards are usually around 110 days. SA leopards require a cooling period to break the diapause. Without this cooling period, which simulates winter, the eggs will not develop. After a sufficient and correctly done cooling period, SA leopard eggs also take about 110 days to incubate. Say an SA leopard lays a clutch in March of 2016. Those eggs will sit in the ground and they will not develop even though the coming summer temps are warm enough to incubate them. Those eggs must undergo a sufficient winter cooling period. Here in SoCal, those eggs would sit in the ground until summer of 2017. Only in the heat of summer is the ground consistently warm enough to incubate them. So those March 2016 eggs wouldn't hatch until September or October of 2017. It doesn't matter when the eggs are laid. They must go through a winter, and then they will begin to incubate the following summer. Its amazing to me that they don't rot over all that time. If I dug them up in March 2016, cooled them and then artificially incubated them, I could have babies as early as August of 2016. The cooling process is roughly two months, then add the 110 days of incubation.
Hi,Tom.I want to know what the appropriate temperature is during the cooling periods?
 

Tom

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Hi,Tom.I want to know what the appropriate temperature is during the cooling periods?

There are several "recipes" that I've heard. The one I'm following is:
1. One month at room temp after eggs are dug up and collected. What is room temp? Doesn't matter. 80-85 in summer, 65 in winter. 72 with AC. All will work.
2. One week in the first wine cooler at 65 degrees.
3. One week in the second wine cooler at 60 degrees.
4. Another week in the first wine cooler at 65 again.
5. One week at room temp.
6. Then into the incubator. I have it set at 87-88.
7. Let them cook and expect hatchlings at around 110 days.

Here is more info on what I do with eggs and hatchlings:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-incubate-eggs-and-start-hatchlings.124266/
 

fangnianli

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There are several "recipes" that I've heard. The one I'm following is:
1. One month at room temp after eggs are dug up and collected. What is room temp? Doesn't matter. 80-85 in summer, 65 in winter. 72 with AC. All will work.
2. One week in the first wine cooler at 65 degrees.
3. One week in the second wine cooler at 60 degrees.
4. Another week in the first wine cooler at 65 again.
5. One week at room temp.
6. Then into the incubator. I have it set at 87-88.
7. Let them cook and expect hatchlings at around 110 days.

Here is more info on what I do with eggs and hatchlings:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-incubate-eggs-and-start-hatchlings.124266/
Thank you very much!:):)
 

Gijoux

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Saturday morning update:
I remove the hatchlings from their incubation box, soak them, and move them into a brooder box as soon as they leave the egg under their own power. Last night this little one was still sitting in its egg. This pic is from first thing this morning:
View attachment 207379


Then the customary first soak:
View attachment 207380


And then the brooder box. First on the menu is the customary egg shell, a tender young grape leaf, some freshly sprouted broadleaf plantain, a lavatera flower and a tiny bit of freshly sprouted grass:
View attachment 207381
I just love this picture!
 

Gijoux

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More pips from another clutch!
1zl4rxx.jpg



Why is this so significant? Different female than the first pics. Different male too. I have 3 females and two males. Females are Crooked Scute, V-Neck and Hamburger. Males are Mr. Blue and Mr. Green. They have to live separately due the the males assertiveness. The babies at the start of this thread are from V-Neck and Mr. Blue. The babies hatching in this post are from Crooked Scute and Mr. Green. This means both males are good-to-go and know how to do the deed. I've got two late season clutches from Hamburger that I'm still waiting on to see if she's also up and running now. Also have one more clutch from V-Neck and Crooked Scute too. Each female laid 8 clutches from March to November last year. You read that right. 24 clutches from 3 females. Clutch size ranged from 8 to 15 eggs. None of the previous 18 clutches hatched, but it appears that the remaining 6 clutches will hatch. I'm very egg-cited to see what this year's clutches bring.
Sooo egg-citing!
 

Jenevieve3991

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There are several "recipes" that I've heard. The one I'm following is:
1. One month at room temp after eggs are dug up and collected. What is room temp? Doesn't matter. 80-85 in summer, 65 in winter. 72 with AC. All will work.
2. One week in the first wine cooler at 65 degrees.
3. One week in the second wine cooler at 60 degrees.
4. Another week in the first wine cooler at 65 again.
5. One week at room temp.
6. Then into the incubator. I have it set at 87-88.
7. Let them cook and expect hatchlings at around 110 days.

Here is more info on what I do with eggs and hatchlings:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-incubate-eggs-and-start-hatchlings.124266/

Would you do this with Sulcata eggs also?
 

Tom

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Would you do this with Sulcata eggs also?
Hello and welcome. No need for this for sulcata eggs. Sulcata eggs do not need a diapause.

Having said that, I did see a higher hatch rate when I left sulcata eggs in the ground for a month or two in winter. I see no reason why this would be. Sulcatas are winter layers here, and the ground temps hover around 50 degrees. Ground temps in sulcata land in Africa hover around 80-85 all year, so why on earth would the eggs being 50 degrees for a month or two increase development and hatch rate? I don't have the answer, but I experimented with this for several years with many clutches and I got consistently higher hatch rates when I left them in the ground for a while in the middle of winter with our rains and occasional freezing night temperatures.

Here is more info on how to do it:
 
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