Tortoise egg laying at night

[TylerStewart]

So I have this female that I picked up in the late fall/early winter last year (November 2008). She hadn't shown much interest in egg laying which sometimes can happen the first year after being moved into a new place. By this time of year, my other females breeding seasons are winding down as it's nearing 100 degrees here (it's mostly March-June), so I had pretty much lost hope for this girl for this year.

I noticed about 3 days ago she was digging holes about the size of her all over the place, pacing around much like the chameleons will do. I can usually tell when they really want to lay, because it's usually 2-3 days after the intense digging, and they'll settle into a hole and kinda back in, and start digging a little pit for the eggs with their back feet. This normally happens in the early to mid morning, with the process finished by about 3-4 PM. Today, this girl started doing this process at 3-4 PM. Normally, they would stop when it got dark and start over in the morning. I decided to put a light over her since temps are in the high 70's to low 80's here at night and see if she'd keep going. Well, she did. She started dropping eggs at about 9:30 PM my time tonight and I'd remove them as they fell. The tortoises go into a trance when they're egg laying and are pretty oblivious to what is going on around them. She didn't care that I was back there, and finished up and filled the hole in after the 17th egg. She will spend the next few hours hiding the nest, so I'm leaving the light on for her, but this was interesting to me being at night. I had a chance to snap a few photos while it was happening, and thought you'd be interested to see it. This is a 20" sulcata female tortoise around 55-60 pounds, my 4th sulcata female to lay eggs this year. Little different than the chameleons, but if there is anything I want to be awake into the night taking care of, this is it for me!

 

[ponders]

Wow, Tyler that's really cool. Thanks for sharing. I was wondering when you were going chime in to give Chris A. some grief about his post, but you were out collecting eggs!

 

[kylerenz]

Very cool Tyler. Seems similar to the actions of a sea turtle more than a tortoise. Maybe it is her dream to be an ocean going vessel rather than land bound. Congrats on the eggs. Not much cuter than baby tortoises.

 

[jojackson]

Wow that is cool! Tortoises hold a special place in my heart, Id love to witness egglaying. Consider yourself fortunate. The chinese consider them very lucky.
I hope they all hatch for you (assuming they are fertilised).

Maybe it is her dream to be an ocean going vessel rather than land bound.

LOl, I dont think so...

Tortoise all at sea!
http://inny.ipbfree.com/index.php?showtopic=2306

 

[laurie]

Man my sister would be on the way to your place in a heart beat. She is nuts about those things. But the picture sure looked neat.

 

[kylerenz]

Ha ha is a great story that you found. I am glad that lifeguard decided to take a closer look.

 

[Kent67]

Man, I wish I had a yard where I could keep some large tortoises. That must've been fun! Is 17 eggs a small clutch for them?

 

[TylerStewart]

This morning, the ground was perfectly flat, and she was sleeping... I checked on her a few times last night, and the poor girl spent all night covering up the nest that had already been robbed LOL.... I don't know how someone would find a nest unless you knew where to look. I'm convinced that I have missed at least one nest this year (I'm keeping good track of which females are due, and they're usually no more than a few days off). One or two of my females are off their pattern (whether I missed a clutch or they decided to stop laying for now), so I'm hoping to just find babies in the fall. I don't even try to find nests for the smaller species, but they will hatch naturally here so I don't worry about it too much.

17 is a little smaller than I expected from her, but is about an average for my clutches. She's one of my bigger girls, so I was hoping for 20-22 or so. My biggest this year has been 27 in a single clutch, smallest 13 (with a few that had cracked, so it was really about 15). The eggs are about the size of ping pong balls, and have a shell just like a chicken egg. Usually they're perfectly round, or slightly oblong. I've had a few that cracked during laying in past clutches, and the shell is much thicker than a chicken egg.

 

[reyesjoshuacruz]

i would have thought at the low market price of 65$ around so cal, the clutch size would have been much bigger. shows how little i know. is proper nutrition the expense with your torts? since they seem to be kept out doors?

 

[TylerStewart]

There's a few people that produce the sulcatas in large numbers and wholesale them out, which is what makes the price low on them. I sell mine for $85, and don't have a problem selling them for that (I've been sold out for a month). It's kinda risky buying them from unknown sources because torts can be unhealthy but not show it for a long while, not like a chameleon that dies on day 2 of being sick without showing any symptoms (some sarcasm here). Instead of buying babies, I'm just waiting on mine to start hatching now, which should be soon. They don't really need 2-3 months to be sellable.

The proper nutrition does get expensive, but a large part of what the sulcatas eat is just grass that grows in with them. I spend more money buying the proper, varied foods for my smaller species (stars, pancakes, greeks, and all the babies) than I spend on the bigger ones. They go through supplements fast (they take in a lot of calcium to produce all the eggs), but I don't spend as much now as I was spending on crickets with all the chameleons.

 

[Kent67]

i would have thought at the low market price of 65$ around so cal, the clutch size would have been much bigger.

Exactly what I was thinking....that plus the size achieved by the species. I used to even see them as low as $50 retail and so thought maybe 50-60 eggs would be more typical. Learn somethin' every day.

 

[Rocky]

That is really cool! I would think the clutches would be larger as well (just comparing to other species like the sea turtle) I remember seeing something on discovery a while back that sea turtles laid ~100 eggs.

 

[TylerStewart]

I think the difference is, they will lay a clutch of eggs once a month during their "peak season," which varies from state to state. In Nevada and AZ, the peak season seems to be March-June (my first clutch this year was March 9th), and it seems that the 110 degree temp shuts them off. In So Cal, it's a few months later than that, where they'll lay early summer through late summer, into August or September. So a single female will lay 1-4 clutches per year, sometimes more, with 30 days between clutches.

There is variation in all this, but that's how it works generally. Somebody that had the capability of keeping 5-10 females would produce a large quantity of eggs in a year, which makes a small clutch size a little less relevant. If you think of 20 ping pong balls bunched together, it's a pretty good sized mass to have inside of a hard shelled animal. The chams will strech out to hold the eggs, but with a fixed shell around you, there's only so much room for expansion in there.

 

[Nicodemayo]

Wow thats really cool. So the smaller species, you never dig up the eggs? You just leave them in your backyard or what?

 

[Syn]

Tyler, my uncle would have a kick talking with you, he has a ton of Desert Tortoises, and quite a few babies.

 

[TylerStewart]

Wow thats really cool. So the smaller species, you never dig up the eggs? You just leave them in your backyard or what?

If I know where they are, I'll dig them up. The smaller species do the process so much faster than the big species, and don't create a disaster area like the big ones do, so it's harder to see where they are. But yeah, they will hatch here out of the ground. Sulcatas and leopards will also, but I dig them up mostly to prevent a future nest from being put in the same spot which could/would break the older eggs. They have a few spots that they use over and over, usually in or near the corners, and I have pulled eggs out of almost exactly the same spots before. My wife is out there a few times a day while I'm not home, but even then we miss some big nests and most small ones.

We also have about 60% of our tortoises at a different location, so I only get there once a week to check on them. Mostly, the producing animals I keep at home to watch for nests, and the up and coming stuff is over there.

 

[bigcappa]

Tyler that rocks... In high school I kept a lot of tortoises and some bread, makes me miss the lil guys.... Thanks for the share

 

[Nicodemayo]

If I know where they are, I'll dig them up. The smaller species do the process so much faster than the big species, and don't create a disaster area like the big ones do, so it's harder to see where they are. But yeah, they will hatch here out of the ground. Sulcatas and leopards will also, but I dig them up mostly to prevent a future nest from being put in the same spot which could/would break the older eggs. They have a few spots that they use over and over, usually in or near the corners, and I have pulled eggs out of almost exactly the same spots before. My wife is out there a few times a day while I'm not home, but even then we miss some big nests and most small ones.

We also have about 60% of our tortoises at a different location, so I only get there once a week to check on them. Mostly, the producing animals I keep at home to watch for nests, and the up and coming stuff is over there.

Thats awesome Tyler, what a cool feeling to see little baby torts crawling around that weren't there before. Sounds like you have fun doing what you do!