Bill,I think you nailed it.Oddly these are the same kind of institutions that kill perfectly good eggs sometimes.They also have a long history of stateing that private people should not be able to own animals.Upon hatching my first Manouria I called that same zoo for advise on raising the young sence they had bred them and I read their paper which helped me a lot,and I told them so.The first thing they said to me was,"we dont approve of private people breeding these tortoises".Their story ended with their self congradulations of hatching.A few years later I noticed the noted *"hybred "after their offspring in the stud book.I kept an entire clutch of 38 hatchlings and raised them all for two years(for a base line study on diet and weight) and some for 18 years to fully understand raising them.This year I had my first C.B.phayrei lay fertile eggs.She was 38 lbs.and 13 yrs old.Nutrishion environment=eggs eggs correct incubation temp/humidity/medium=offspring.Add some obsessive worrying,anel retentive observation,and you can do it repetedly.Vic

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