Tortoise Season

Hellooooo!  Any one still there?  I wouldn't be surprised if you have all given up and gone on your way, it has been a long long time.  I am truly sorry about that but life is proving very hectic and difficult to maintain, let alone the blog and all the added extras in life.  The truth is that at this very moment I am supposed to be writing a dissertation and I have very little time left, but I have some news I am just desperate to share with you!

As the title says, it is now Tortoise season for me.  They are all very busy and active and needing lots of food.  I generally forage or grow food for them, feeding mainly wild plants and flowers, otherwise known as weeds.  The Maggie dog loves accompanying me on food foraging walks so it is a win win situation.  On Tuesday the tortoise season really ramped up when I popped home from work for lunch and discovered Persephone laying eggs!

Persephone my whitiei Tortoise laying eggs

She was very kind, to wait until my lunch break because she is such a brilliant Mum, she re-covers and hides her eggs so that I would never find them if I hadn't seen her laying them.

Six Tortoise eggs

Six eggs were laid in total and they are now in an incubator at 32 degrees Celsius.  The sex of potential tortoises is dictated by the incubation temperature.  With my species: at 28 to 30 degrees males are most likely. 30 to 31.5 degrees is likely to produce males and females and 32 degrees is likely to produce females.  

I hope one or two of the eggs will be fertile.  Last year she laid two eggs and one was fertile.  The year before she laid eight and two were fertile.  Time will tell how many are fertile this year, normally within five days you can see by candling the egg.

Candling an egg is easy, I simply shine a small light onto the egg.  At the moment they all look clear, but lets just see if any change by the weekend... fingers crossed.