Tips on knowing where eggs are laid outside

[LRTortoises]

I have 2 Marginated Females which have lain eggs for me and 3 Russian Females that definitely could as they were bred by a male often for the past two months.

My question is does anyone have any tips for finding out where or if they laid eggs.

I try to check on them often to see if they have but I know some days I miss seeing them for periods.

Any tips would be appreciated.

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

It seems no one knows!
I don't.
All i can think of is to look for areas of recently disturbed ground, but I guess that's obvious and doesn't help much.
Sorry, good luck!.

 

[Yvonne G]

I've been at it for a long time, and my best answer is sometime you just happen upon a nest digging. Most of the time I find them by accident. Right now I've got a female Manouria building a nest mound. But unless I stay out there watching her all the time, there's no difference in her behaviour before she's laid the eggs as after she's laid them. They build the nest, dig down and lay the eggs, then they continue to work the nest the same way as before the eggs.

With the leopard tortoises I just happened upon the female digging a hole. But I've missed a few of those nests too.

If you have a suspicion that the female has eggs to lay, you can compare her weight daily. After she's dug a nest and deposited the eggs, she will be considerably lighter in weight. Then you just go over the yard with a fine-toothed comb looking for smooth dirt that looks like it's been watered (they pee on it to pack the dirt down)

 

[Big B]

Russians cover the nest really well. Sometimes it's hard to find when you know where the nest is. Best to catch them in the act. Females become very active and grumpy before they nest.

 

[N2TORTS]

One of the most ....fascinated things when it comes time for you to breed (or by chance). The question in itself is very broad as different species have different tell tell signs of ready to lay or the “by nature” are not so good of camouflaging their nest and easy to identify location. There are other factors involved as well , such as type of enclosure and the animals that are retained within it , size , location of sun, soil substrate ect…..For myself I have hatched out probably around 6 different species of tortoises , along with numerous herps and other type of mammals, fish and even – Seahorses too! Now ….for Redfoots – they are one of the best at hiding their eggs, including - compaction of a new hole dug and even spreading litter leaf among their new hole – as to “ hide the evidence”. Again this all can contribute to how you keep the environment you keep, and knowing the animals you keep. The “Key” part is to look for signs on how your female is acting and factor’s that play a role in days prior to nesting. There is no better proof to catch her in the act. As well as collecting eggs and having a better success rate on hatchlings depending on what part of the country you live in.

 

[N2TORTS]

hopefully one of our more experienced Marginated breeders can help out ....

 

[TurtleBug]

My question is does anyone have any tips for finding out where or if they laid eggs. I try to check on them often to see if they have but I know some days I miss seeing them for periods.

Install a security or trail camera and review the video/photos in the evening.

 

[tglazie]

I know I'm chiming in a little late, but all points so far have been pretty good. I would say the number one thing is to know your female. When Lady Gino, my biggest marginated female, is going to lay, she becomes unbelievably restless. She paces the entirety of her large enclosure, covering every inch. She presses against the walls and rushes to meet me anytime I walk into the enclosure. She also becomes very particular about what she will eat. The lamb's lettuce, dandelion, and English plantain suffer some serious abuse during laying season. She also tends to turn up her nose to mulberry leaves, grape leaves, collards, and romaine at this time. I don't know why this is, given that when she isn't carrying, she will eat these with gusto. She's also incredibly aggressive. When I introduce her to her mate Little Gino, at the beginning of the season, a week following emergence from brumation, she usually attempts to flee and behaves in a very passive fashion. A little over a month back in late March, I introduced Little Gino into her habitat when she was on one of her laying rampages, just to see her reaction, and she totally took him off guard, attacking with a ferocity that encouraged me to remove the poor fella as quickly as I could get my hands on him. I mean, she was going to make him eat dirt, I could just see it. The next day, she laid. Lady Gino is great, though. She lays like clockwork. She varies on when she lays that first clutch, but once she does, she has historically laid one or two more clutches (none numbering more than seven), subsequent clutches being twenty days apart. She sometimes digs test nests, but I'm usually fairly confident about what is and what isn't a test nest given the timing. I'm actually going through this right now. She's due that third clutch tomorrow afternoon, but she was digging test nests yesterday. As I suspected, she has yet to lay. Also, every time she lays, it has been between the hours of six and eight in the evening. I guess I'm just lucky, because I typically come home from the shop during those hours and am welcomed by the lovely lady excavating a nest.

Now, Little Marge is the sneaky one. I only have one year of experience with Little Marge laying eggs, as opposed to my four years of experience with Lady Gino, so perhaps I just don't know her well enough yet to know. However, Little Marge, so far, has only produced one clutch this year, though that one numbered eight eggs. Little Marge does become restless like Lady Gino, and she also becomes rather picky about what she will eat, which in her case, is limited to flowers of all kinds, hibiscus leaves, and mallow. Anything else, and she turns up her nose. Weird. Once she lays, though, she'll eat anything. I weigh both tortoises daily during this time of year, but Margie is the one for whom I depend completely on this metric. If Margie didn't drop weight after laying, I would never know she laid. The only time I ever caught this girl laying was when she dropped what I thought was her first clutch, two infertile duds. I caught her at eleven in the morning, tapping down a nest with her back legs. I have security cameras in the backyard to watch for thieves from my office, but to be honest, I've never really had to use it to find a nesting spot. I provide both girls with two hills inside their enclosures for laying, and they always use one of half a dozen spots, at least that I'm aware. Thus far, I've caught every clutch Lady Gino has laid, but the regularity of her laying has really made that a rather easy time. Little Marge, on the other hand, is always doing her best to evade my efforts at finding the eggs.

Ultimately, I think the takeaway here is to know your ladies. Make sure that they're well fed, have constant access to calcium, and allowed personal space in a stress free environment, and just let them do what their ancestors evolved to do over millions of years. And just do your best. We've all missed clutches in the ground. Heck, when Lady Gino first started laying, I went through an egg with a shovel. Ever since that happened, I only use my hands. Are there clutches that I may have missed? It's certainly possible. But unless you can follow these ladies through every step of their day, there's no way to catch every nest excavation as it happens. But with regular weighing and knowing your ladies' habits, you can figure it out and get better at figuring it out with practice.

T.G.

 

[LRTortoises]

Thanks I ran through an egg with a shovel also and felt bad all day. I definitely cant follow them all day and have house sitters this summer for about three weeks while I am gone.

 

[puffy137]

4 of my greek females have been seen laying eggs , sometimes twice each in different places . I don't intend removing them to an incubator , but I have made a map of where they have laid. Maggie is new at this & she laid her clutch too near the surface , so I dug down with my hands & then with a paint brush to uncover the eggs & removed them to a deeper hole. If luck serves the first babies should emerge in mid June.
P.S. If I hadn't seen them laying I wouldn't know where they are.

 

[shellfreak]

Look into a camera called arlo. Chris leone Told me about them. I have been using them and it works out great. They are 100 percent wireless and vey easy to sync with your router. Plus you will be addicted to watching your tortoises during the day on a phone, tablet and/or computer. Takes about 1-2 hours for them to dig and lay and cover up. So if you check the camera once an hour you will catch her laying.
My old trick was to spread a thin layer of oyster shells throughout the enclosure, around the base of bushes, trees, etc. that way when the oyster shells are disrupted, you might have a nest...
Good luck.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

Install a security or trail camera and review the video/photos in the evening.

Have you done this? can you offer any tips based on your experience. I agree this is pretty much the best idea to come along.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

Have you done this? can you offer any tips based on your experience. I agree this is pretty much the best idea to come along.

@TurtleBug I sometimes don't respond to inline questions 'cause I don't look back at the thread. If that's the case here, well now you see My question. Otherwise, didn't mean to bug ya.

 

[TurtleBug]

@Will, I had an outdoor camera years ago, but those days the picture quality wasn't that great. Kinda just clear enough to see what the tortoises were doing. I might buy a new one that allows me to view the feed on my iPhone.

The Arlo by Netgear security system (weatherproof, night vision, movable, HD, up to 15 cameras) that @shellfreak mentions above sounds promising. Maybe he can share more about his setup with us.

http://www.arlo.com/en-us/

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

@Will, I had an outdoor camera years ago, but those days the picture quality wasn't that great. Kinda just clear enough to see what the tortoises were doing. I might buy a new one that allows me to view the feed on my iPhone.

The Arlo by Netgear security system (weatherproof, night vision, movable, HD, up to 15 cameras) that @shellfreak mentions above sounds promising. Maybe he can share more about his setup with us.

http://www.arlo.com/en-us/

I looked at the page, it's going to be alot of reading to resolve a few questions. Number one is, if all the cameras are on, as I don't think a female laying eggs would be enough activity to trigger the 'on' then how fast will the batteries die? It looks like each location needs a wifi booster, so on a farm, what range can be expected for a single booster. Is there an ongoing cost, after the initial purchase? Can it be set up to just take say 15 seconds of video every hour, that way alot can be monitored without having to look at alot of video? It goes on? I already have enough to do without having to check a video feed every hour to see if...

This looks like it could be promising, but I really want to be able to record a few seconds every hour for later review, not have to look in every few hours from work or elsewhere.

 

[shellfreak]

I've had these cameras for a few weeks now. I don't think you can have it set up to record a few seconds every hour. But You can create a schedule for motion detection. For example, I have it set up to record motion from 10am-1pm and then again from 4pm-midnight. Those times for me seem to be the most frequent times my lay eggs. You can also change the sensitivity of recording. From 0%-100%. If at 100 it will pick up a rain drop or a fly. So if she is moving a little while digging, it might pick it up. You can also change the amount of time you want it to record when it senses motion, up to 120 seconds. My enclosures are about 250 feet from my house and wifi works fine. They say you can go up to 300 feet. The battery holds pretty well. The app tells you the battery life for each camera. As well as the wifi connection.
I also use a camera from foscam. Model oscam FI9828P 1.3 Megapixel (1280x960p) 3x Optical Zoom H.264 Wireless Outdoor PTZ IP Camera; model number FI9828W. I like this one bc you can pan/tilt & zoom. So I can see 360 degrees of my enclosures. I have attached a few shots of each. The first picture is from arlo camera. It's set up near a bush my females always lay under. The second shot is from the Foscam. The last picture is what both cameras look like. The Foscam is attached to the hide. And the arlo is near the bush.