and team photographer. They are my sons, he does the daily care. I pipe up every now and again, but he makes all the important decisions.

We keep them outside once the night time temps start getting around sixty F. or there abouts. That means the day time temps are already hot. And yes, they are in my oldest circular monitor cage. My son plants sod and gives them boards(retes boards to hide and burrow under). He normally feeds an assortment of leafy greens(I often pick up spring mix for him) The exact diet I am not sure off.

In the winter he brings them in and this winter keeps them in a med. turtleland tub. I built plex tops(really bad ones) and the tops are on a rack I first designed for mertens monitors. He has successfully bred spotteds in the other tubs, and now is working on those and chinese box turtles. which are really nice too. He also breeds Sulcatta torts too(outside). And red eared sliders(in our pond), and we took a R.p.manni egg to full term then I let it get too dry(my fault) did I mention, I do the egg hatching thing. Turtle and tort eggs are bizarre.

The odd part to us was they successfully bred indoors and in rather barren conditions. Dirt, deeper in the land part of the tub, and shallow in the water part. Again there are boards to hide under and a walk in water dish.

He noticed the first female test digging(a sign of no proper nesting). So I recomended to my son to fix up the deeper dirt and place a lite over it, as the test digging was directly under the lite. But I was to late, he had already done that. Then the female immediately nested under the lite in the deeper dirt. I then mentioned that he should keep an eye on the second female. The next day, he said, dad your right, the second one is digging. I moistened up the dirt the next day, but she only test dug, my son moisten up the dirt the following day and she laid.

The first female laid 4 large eggs for their size. the second female which is slightly smaller laid 3, her eggs were slightly larger then the first. I have a friend who breeds lots of torts and has hatched one golden, she recomended 86 to 87F to produce females, the top shelf of our incubator room is 86F most of the time. So there they sit.

We were very lucky to see and photograph the first laying. It was very very comical. In our experience(very limited) it stresses the torts by watching them. So my son said dad, we better leave. I then said, her butt is flitching, and he said, she pulled her head in like the spotteds do when they lay an egg. And bam, she shot out the first eggs, which I got pics of as it just started to come out, and then most of the way out. So we left and came back after she covered the nest.

As the varaniphiles know, I am a firm believer of behavior and I fell its important to allow females to complete their nesting and not be disturbed. So we did not bother the second female.

I hope they are fertile, the males breeds them off and on, all the stinking time. Hes bangs them like a machine gun(pre-mating), and when mating he squeaks, it really really cracks me up. I have really enjoyed these torts. Thanks FR

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