As of this writing at the beginning of June, the weather is cool and windy and the temperatures at night are in the 40's. It's a repeat of last year's weather and the Bunker residents are hoping the summer weather will begin soon. Egg laying has been delayed and appetites are down. Fighting, however, is at an all time high. The tortoises congregate by the kitchen door most of the day awaiting the arrival of food. They mill about, sniffing the ground, tasting anything that might be edible. I often find some of them upside down. I thought they were trying to climb the steps in order to get into the kitchen (as Clyde, the Elongata, so often does) and then tumbling upside down in the process. The other day, however, I happened to see what is really happening out there. Tillie, a smaller Leopard tortoise, started pushing all of the other tortoises around. He would put his head underneath their shells and push them until they flipped over. Luckily the porch is always in the shade. Since Leopards are notoriously shy and non-threatening, I can only assume he found out he has a girls name.
A male Russian has arrived at the Bunker and I had high hopes of him taking an interest in either Fat Betty or her daughter, but all he does is eat and sleep. The handsome male Hermann's tortoise who came in during the winter months and stayed in the greenhouse does not appear to be helping my breeding project at all. He spends his days chasing the Elongatas. He'll pause to inspect a female Hermann, and then continue on his merry way, unaware of the disappointment he is causing me and all of the people who would love to have a hatchling.
Other than having a water turtle jump out of the box inside my car, having snails crawling on my kitchen table and my husband taking the margarine tub out of the refrigerator and finding some redworms stuck to the lid.......things have been fairly normal. It is a joy to have everyone out of the greenhouse doing what they do best - enjoying the outdoor sunshine and munching on the fresh green grass. The tortoises look better and are enjoying their freedom and I hope we have extended warmth until Thanksgiving. Keep your fingers crossed.
Believe It Or Not: Egg Oddities
(excerpted to fit our newsletter)
From the Michigan Society of Herpetologists newsletter September 1998
by Ann Hirschfeld
This past year I finally had some success breeding my pair of yellowfoot tortoises (Geochelone denticulata). My female had laid eggs in the spring of 1996 but they never hatched. Last spring she deposited three clutches of eggs approximately two months apart and each clutch produced at least one hatchling. I discovered during this period that yellowfoot eggs need to be incubated at 80 degrees F. with 80 to 90% humidity. I learned the hard way even a few degrees higher can cause deformities and even death in the developing tortoises but that is material for another article altogether. With the last clutch of two eggs, I lowered the temperature while they were a month and a half into incubation.
About three weeks later I noticed one of the eggs had cracked laterally about halfway around. A few days later the second egg had done the same thing but not quite as bad. The egg with the biggest crack was oozing what appeared to be albumen (egg white) with blood vessels in it. Well, to say the least, I felt hopeless for the future of these eggs and to know they at one time were viable was very disheartening. I learned from a friend who had read in Vivarium magazine (Volume 8 Number 5) how to repair a cracked egg by adhering it with cellophane and Vaseline. I figured it was worth a try on the egg which had not begun to leak. The oozing egg was left alone and with time the seeping liquid turned a disgusting reddish black (I should have warned you from the beginning this story would not be pretty!) For some reason I never threw this egg away. I thought about it a few times but as I said before, if it doesn't stink.....and it didn't so in the incubator it stayed. I basically had written these poor eggs off.
Two months went by and right about the time they were due to hatch, I looked into the incubator to see what was happening with them. The nasty, seeping egg had burst open on one end and I assumed it had exploded. When I picked it up, I peeled back the eggshell to have a peek (I just can't help myself) and came face to face with an alert baby yellowfoot (deja vu)! I nearly had a heart attack but got over it and then was just plain happy! This baby hatched normally and altho small it was a healthy tortoise. The only thing abnormal was that the yolk sac took longer than usual to absorb. The other egg with the cellophane on it hatched a week later and that baby was perfect. Though this egg business can be very strange, it is also endlessly amazing. I can't wait to see what other egg oddities lie ahead.
Summer Reminders