Record-setter Redfoot

[Turtlepete]

Few weeks ago, a female of mine laid 10 eggs on Nov. 10th. She's about an 11-11 1/2" girl, so I thought this was a pretty big clutch. I made a thread about it (http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/max-redfoot-clutch-size.106865/). Kelly @tortadise speculated that it was possible she had retained a clutch to contribute to this one huge clutch. I considered this possibility, though last year she laid 9 in one clutch. Well, this afternoon, a little under 4 weeks later, she surprised me with not 10, but 11 eggs. Certainly a record for me! I am assuming, being that she recently laid 10 eggs, that none of these are retained.
Curious just how many eggs I could get from this girl, in a single clutch and in a single season. She's only laid 2 clutches so far this season (which seems to be Oct. - February, or a little later down here south), for a total of 21 eggs.
Will be interesting to see how these giant clutches affect fertility. I suspect it won't be a positive effect . Still interesting she has such large clutches.

 

[tortadise]

Wow pretty awesome. I'll definitely say I've never seen that from northerns. Bolivians oh yes. Must be the seasoning of them down where your at. I know mine will lay clutches year around every 6-8 weeks.

 

[Yvonne G]

I'm not up on my RF knowledge, but that's great! I hope they all hatch.

 

[wellington]

I second Yvonne's post. Good luck.

 

[Kathy Coles]

Is "dad" tired?

 

[stojanovski92113]

Pretty cool, I know nothing about this topic, but I'm learning. I may have all female tortoises even though I think deep down inside I have 2 females & 2 males (I got it stuck in my head)!

 

[ZEROPILOT]

Way to go Pete!

 

[Turtlepete]

Wow pretty awesome. I'll definitely say I've never seen that from northerns. Bolivians oh yes. Must be the seasoning of them down where your at. I know mine will lay clutches year around every 6-8 weeks.

My other females used to. Past 3 years or so I get eggs only in that time period. Odd to me they picked our short South FL winter to lay eggs.

 

[HLogic]

My other females used to. Past 3 years or so I get eggs only in that time period. Odd to me they picked our short South FL winter to lay eggs.

They synchronize to the dry season timing the end of incubation to correspond with the beginning of the wet season when there will be plenty of forage available for the hatchlings to devour.

 

[AmRoKo]

Maybe she's particularly attractive to the male redfoots, do you ever see them catcalling her?

 

[Turtlepete]

They synchronize to the dry season timing the end of incubation to correspond with the beginning of the wet season when there will be plenty of forage available for the hatchlings to devour.

But wouldn't they have some sort of sense of temperature? I always thought it seemed illogical for them to lay their eggs when we have 50-degree weather nightly. None of these eggs would hatch naturally (though I've seen eggs to be able to handle much colder temperatures then the average incubator temp and still hatch). If it is indeed because of the dry season and no other factor, then that certainly makes sense, since this is the driest time of the year here, and the eggs would be hatching when south Fl was coming into the rainy season. Interesting.

 

[Turtlepete]

I should mention, unfortunately, the eggs from her last 10-egg clutch look to be pretty low fertility. Last year though, her typical 7-9 egg clutches had pretty good fertility.

 

[Jacqui]

I should mention, unfortunately, the eggs from her last 10-egg clutch look to be pretty low fertility. Last year though, her typical 7-9 egg clutches had pretty good fertility.

Do you have any guess why?

 

[HLogic]

But wouldn't they have some sort of sense of temperature? I always thought it seemed illogical for them to lay their eggs when we have 50-degree weather nightly. None of these eggs would hatch naturally (though I've seen eggs to be able to handle much colder temperatures then the average incubator temp and still hatch). If it is indeed because of the dry season and no other factor, then that certainly makes sense, since this is the driest time of the year here, and the eggs would be hatching when south Fl was coming into the rainy season. Interesting.

They have little, if any, sense of temperature. The eggs will do just fine in 55-60 degree temps, essentially dormant, and will finish incubating when the later dry season temps rise. Mine lay between late October and mid-April..and have been doing so like clockwork for years... I have had 'wild-hatched' young'ns appear after temps had fallen to 22 degrees for more than 8 hours during the incubation outside.

 

[Turtlepete]

They have little, if any, sense of temperature. The eggs will do just fine in 55-60 degree temps, essentially dormant, and will finish incubating when the later dry season temps rise. Mine lay between late October and mid-April..and have been doing so like clockwork for years... I have had 'wild-hatched' young'ns appear after temps had fallen to 22 degrees for more than 8 hours during the incubation outside.

Wow. Amazing. I've had naturally-incubated eggs hatch, that I've found in the pens, when the temps have gone down into the lower 60's. Never in the 50's though, but there could be any amount of other factors contributing to those failures. That's amazing. Do they enter a sort of diapause then, and take longer to incubate? Your's nest close to the same as mine, but a little later. Where in Florida are you located?

 

[N2TORTS]

Here I'll give you your own bump ......outdoor temps have nothing to do with soil temps .....
Would be interesting to see you probe the areas of different nest sites and fertility/hatching rates within.

Soil Organic Matter Dynamics Along Gradients in Temperature


Read More: http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.2307/1939339

 

[Turtlepete]

Do you have any guess why?

Nope. I'm not that smart at this stuff . Possibly just the male paid less attention to her this year…? Some sort of dietary element missing, though that seems unlikely, being that I've made no changes.
Interesting question though. HLogic, any idea why fertility would decline in larger clutches?

 

[Turtlepete]

Here I'll give you your own bump ......outdoor temps have nothing to do with soil temps .....
Would be interesting to see you probe the areas of different nest sites and fertility/hatching rates within.

Soil Organic Matter Dynamics Along Gradients in Temperature


Read More: http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.2307/1939339

This is true. I might mention though, the temps would definitely vary with varying depths of the egg chamber. This particular female nests with the top eggs often exposed (she doesn't completely cover them). Those eggs would be exposed to all outdoor temps, I'd imagine. I have one female that buries quite deep though, and spends hours packing the soil down, so I imagine her nests would fare much better in lower temps.

 

[HLogic]

The soil/nest temp probably didn't drop below 55 - 60 even during the cold snap. To the best of my knowledge, RF's do not diapause but the development would be rather slow at those temps. Cooling eggs initially doesn't seem to affect them too adversely.

Larger clutch size generally means smaller egg size. Smaller eggs are less likely to survive.