Baby tortoises are hatching!
By lauram
17 comments
Back in early June, two of my Burmese brown tortoises each laid over thirty eggs. For the past two and a half months, they’ve been cooking away in the incubator, and they’ve finally begun hatching.
During June and most of July, all of the eggs were looking good. Gradually, however, most became moldy and had to be tossed. Last week, in despair and convinced that all of the eggs would be lost, I separated the 8 somewhat-OK eggs into a smaller container and left the doomed-to-fail eggs in a different incubator. I didn’t check them for several days – I was sure that none would hatch. Imagine my surprise when I opened up the incubator on Sunday and saw this:
Lo and behold, some of the eggs had holes. I peeped inside one and a little eye gazed back at me. Then the owner of the eye hissed and attempted to bite.
This morning, before work, I took the 3 eggs that contained hatchlings who were about a third of the way out of the shell and separated them. I didn’t want them to damage the other eggs.
Upon returning home from work today I saw this:
They are awfully cute, aren’t they?
25 Aug, 2010
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Comments
Oh my goodness, they are kind of cute, do they normally bite?
25 Aug, 2010
Ahh they are lovely thanks for sharing.
25 Aug, 2010
Amazing Lauram what a privelidge to see--- fancy-- that the instinct to protect is there at hatching, most babies need to learn
25 Aug, 2010
Fantastic! !!!!!!!!
Thank you for sharing the photos ;-)
25 Aug, 2010
How wonderful ! Lovely pics ! :~)
25 Aug, 2010
Wow from me too, wonderful photo's, lovely little things :-)
25 Aug, 2010
Wow from me also, How lucky you are to have tortoise's Laurum. I have not seen any since I was a youngster ( back then we had two ). They are gentle creatures and I find them fascinating to watch.
May I add a lovely pic of your cat too. Thanks for sharing the pics
25 Aug, 2010
Lovely Blog, lots of interest as always
25 Aug, 2010
great blog & photos...they are so sweet
25 Aug, 2010
I will have to keep them away from the cats! The cats won't hurt them - but they WILL steal them & carry them around the house. That's happened before; I never thought my cats would go into a tank with water in it and remove hatchlings, but they did! They get bored and soon realize that baby turtles are not much fun to play with. One of them stole 2 babies and put them in his food bowl. thanks everybody for all your kind comments!
25 Aug, 2010
Fascinating stuff!
26 Aug, 2010
Oh yes! How wonderful! How many hatched eventually?
27 Aug, 2010
wow very cute. ive not seen tortoises since my child hood.thanks for sharing the pics with us all.:)
27 Aug, 2010
There are 8. It took 2 or 3 days for each of them to hatch - very slow! It's so funny to look at the mother and then her babies; she's 45 pounds and her little ones are only about an inch and a half long.
28 Aug, 2010
I ve never seen them that small before, I breed cockatiels and no matter how many eggs hatch it still gives me such a great buzz, you must be feeling as proud as punch on them hatching, Well done girl,,
30 Aug, 2010
they are very cute ~ ive never seen them before!
they seem to be as slow coming out of the shell as they are to walk!! suppose thats to be expected.
10 Jan, 2011
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10 Sep, 2010
wow,showed my teen who said wow too
25 Aug, 2010