A couple years ago @Will took the Manouria emys phayrei home to San Diego, but I kept the Manouria emys emys (1.1) here. Both of them are pretty young, with the male maybe a couple three or four years younger than the female.
Last summer the female scraped up a nest of sorts (her first time) and then deposited her eggs and continued scraping, breaking all the eggs in the process. Oh well, first time. She needed a bit more practice. I wasn't too bummed out because I had seen no breeding activity, figuring Duc (the male) just wasn't ready yet.
For the past week or so Rajkumar (the female) has been showing a lot of interest in the nesting site I made for her - a nice covered area piled high with leaves and dirt. But she never scraped any new nesting material into the area, just dug around a little and sat there daydreaming.
Tonight while I was going around making sure everyone was tucked in for the night I noticed Misty (my faithful dog companion) showing particular interest in the Manouria waterer. I looked over the fence and saw that Rajkumar was sitting at the edge of the water looking in, and I thought, "Misty must want a drink but she's afraid of the tortoise." So I hopped the fence, and this is what Misty was interested in:
Misty is my egg sniffing dog. Only trouble is, she hasn't yet learned that the eggs are MINE!, not hers. There were 46 of them in the water, with several totally broken and two just cracked, but beyond repair. And Rajkumar was sitting at the side watching me carefully, but not interfering with my egg rescue operation.
I ended up with 39 very large eggs. They will sit on my 80+F degree kitchen counter while I'm getting the temperature in the incubator adjusted for them. I really doubt they'll do any good. I still haven't seen Duc show any interest in being a boy, and I don't know if sitting in the water harmed the eggs any. The protective slime coating was totally washed off in the water.
Just a note of explanation on that water. I give them fresh water daily, but because it is recessed into the ground, and there is loose dirt all around outside it, the first time the tortoises step into it, dirt goes in too. It doesn't normally look as bad as it looks in that first picture. (Yvonne looks away, embarrassed)
Last summer the female scraped up a nest of sorts (her first time) and then deposited her eggs and continued scraping, breaking all the eggs in the process. Oh well, first time. She needed a bit more practice. I wasn't too bummed out because I had seen no breeding activity, figuring Duc (the male) just wasn't ready yet.
For the past week or so Rajkumar (the female) has been showing a lot of interest in the nesting site I made for her - a nice covered area piled high with leaves and dirt. But she never scraped any new nesting material into the area, just dug around a little and sat there daydreaming.
Tonight while I was going around making sure everyone was tucked in for the night I noticed Misty (my faithful dog companion) showing particular interest in the Manouria waterer. I looked over the fence and saw that Rajkumar was sitting at the edge of the water looking in, and I thought, "Misty must want a drink but she's afraid of the tortoise." So I hopped the fence, and this is what Misty was interested in:
Misty is my egg sniffing dog. Only trouble is, she hasn't yet learned that the eggs are MINE!, not hers. There were 46 of them in the water, with several totally broken and two just cracked, but beyond repair. And Rajkumar was sitting at the side watching me carefully, but not interfering with my egg rescue operation.
I ended up with 39 very large eggs. They will sit on my 80+F degree kitchen counter while I'm getting the temperature in the incubator adjusted for them. I really doubt they'll do any good. I still haven't seen Duc show any interest in being a boy, and I don't know if sitting in the water harmed the eggs any. The protective slime coating was totally washed off in the water.
Just a note of explanation on that water. I give them fresh water daily, but because it is recessed into the ground, and there is loose dirt all around outside it, the first time the tortoises step into it, dirt goes in too. It doesn't normally look as bad as it looks in that first picture. (Yvonne looks away, embarrassed)
