Interesting evening at the Butler homestead.
Tonight as we were preparing an area for our fall garden I discovered a spot that looked like a tortoise nest. Started digging it up and sure enough, found some eggs. This nest would have been at least a year old and one I knew I missed, but never was able to find it. It was in a very dry area, completely exposed to all day direct sunlight. I thought for sure the eggs would be cooked and didn't expect to find any life. Started digging around a bit more and was shocked to find a hatched tortoise! I thought it would have been dead, but I examined it and was double shocked to see it start moving.
I ended up finding 5 hatched tortoises, 3 unhatched eggs and 2 cracked eggs with underdeveloped hatchlings. One of the 5 tortoises was deceased, but freshly so. Perhaps if I had done this little project last week end like I had originally hoped, it might have turned out different. So that's the "lose some" bit for this evening.
The remaining 4 are not in great shape, but moving around quite well. It was incredibly hot in that nest, and who knows how long they were out. They have almost no pigment on their skin and they look a bit emaciated.
Gave them a LONG soak, which they seemed to appreciate.
The evening wasn't done.
I did purposely leave on of our nests in the ground last year (ran out of room in the incubators). This nest was laid in our lawn, which is kept moist by the sprinklers, and it was also underneath a large mature mesquite tree, so I had no worries about leaving it in the ground. After finding the first nest, we thought it would be a good time to dig up this one, so we went at it.
Dug up 8 live babies and didn't find any unhatched eggs or deceased babies.
A few still have a bit of a yolk sack, but all are very robust and the colors are about as vivid as I have ever seen. The pictures don't do them justice (I suck at photography and it was dark, double whammy). I'll try to get some better pics tomorrow.
This guy had something interesting going on. Note the plant roots hanging out of his mouth.
I think I could label these two as "ivory leopard tortoises".
Just for giggles here's some more fun. Dug up a nest the other day and was quadruple shocked to find 14 gigantic eggs.
Here is one of those eggs compared to a normal sized egg:
The egg on the left will yield an average sized 20g leopard. The egg on the right is easily double the size and weight. I'll post when and if they hatch.
So, a couple of lose's, but overall it was a good evening!
Tonight as we were preparing an area for our fall garden I discovered a spot that looked like a tortoise nest. Started digging it up and sure enough, found some eggs. This nest would have been at least a year old and one I knew I missed, but never was able to find it. It was in a very dry area, completely exposed to all day direct sunlight. I thought for sure the eggs would be cooked and didn't expect to find any life. Started digging around a bit more and was shocked to find a hatched tortoise! I thought it would have been dead, but I examined it and was double shocked to see it start moving.
I ended up finding 5 hatched tortoises, 3 unhatched eggs and 2 cracked eggs with underdeveloped hatchlings. One of the 5 tortoises was deceased, but freshly so. Perhaps if I had done this little project last week end like I had originally hoped, it might have turned out different. So that's the "lose some" bit for this evening.
The remaining 4 are not in great shape, but moving around quite well. It was incredibly hot in that nest, and who knows how long they were out. They have almost no pigment on their skin and they look a bit emaciated.
Gave them a LONG soak, which they seemed to appreciate.
The evening wasn't done.
I did purposely leave on of our nests in the ground last year (ran out of room in the incubators). This nest was laid in our lawn, which is kept moist by the sprinklers, and it was also underneath a large mature mesquite tree, so I had no worries about leaving it in the ground. After finding the first nest, we thought it would be a good time to dig up this one, so we went at it.
Dug up 8 live babies and didn't find any unhatched eggs or deceased babies.
A few still have a bit of a yolk sack, but all are very robust and the colors are about as vivid as I have ever seen. The pictures don't do them justice (I suck at photography and it was dark, double whammy). I'll try to get some better pics tomorrow.
This guy had something interesting going on. Note the plant roots hanging out of his mouth.
I think I could label these two as "ivory leopard tortoises".
Just for giggles here's some more fun. Dug up a nest the other day and was quadruple shocked to find 14 gigantic eggs.
Here is one of those eggs compared to a normal sized egg:
The egg on the left will yield an average sized 20g leopard. The egg on the right is easily double the size and weight. I'll post when and if they hatch.
So, a couple of lose's, but overall it was a good evening!
but also makes it hard to get out without rain to soften the dirt. I'm pretty sure that many babies sleep in their hatching chamber until the rainy season arrives bringing a new food supply for them to start life after the dry passes. These little Leopards may have been waiting for rain to come
