Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The only nesting we caught in our cool and record-breakingly-rainy spring was a three-toed nesting of three eggs. They have hatched. Two came out fine, one did not survive hatching. Of the two that did, one had a torn yolk sac, and was a runt, but dang is this the fiestiest baby box turtle I have EVER seen. I lifted him to inspect his yolk and he BIT me. No boxie has ever bitten me, least of all a hatchling. His yolk has since absorbed and he's climbed out of his deli cup already, tried to bite my wife, and is in general a cantankerous little one. It's much larger sibling (at normal size) is very much a typical hatchling. They both have the dark skin of their father.

These were incubated 63 days at about 84 degrees, so will most likely be female. None of the three (I fully opened the egg of the one that did not survive to inspect it) have any scute abnormalities.

I used a hovabator, set it and played with it for about a week to get the temp stabilized. I then used a deli cup with vermiculite for the eggs, and kept them moist with misting of the vermiculite as needed, otherwise leaving them alone. (all this info is just for those of you who often ask how to incubate and such) I must say this was the easiest method I've used.

Hopefully photos soon. It's been quite hectic around our house lately.

ahh lucky nathan, I think my 3, 3-toe eggs are bad, they're due to hatch next month and there's still no growth and one is pretty concave,
glad to hear you had a pretty successful hatch

Congratulations!
We have had three Easterns hatch successfully, the fourth was very puny, and after a three day struggle did not make it: it still had alot of unabsorbed yolk. We're very pleased to have the three: the first has already eaten a couple of very small worms and its only a week old.
Not biting any big bad humans yet, though... ;P

Congratulations! I miss having baby turtles around the house but after 6-7 years of eggs and hatchlings, I have curtailed all mating amoungst the turtles and this is the 3rd year without any. I sure miss fawning over them all winter long, etc

Good luck with them. I did have a batch that I incubated at 84 and one was a female, the other a male!
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Tess
Kingsnake.com Forum Host

Normally we are only keeping one or two a year any more and giving away the rest (our whole puny attempt to slow down wild caught purchases). This year we have a tough decision to make. Since we only have two, we have to decide if we will give any away. I have to say, I'm very interested in seeing how this fiesty one that bit me will grow up.

It's tough.

Anyway, I do like having a few little ones through the winter. Afterwards I don't see them much when the move outdoors. I definately don't want to try and handle the 10 or so babies we have done in the past. That's a lot of work every day. Maybe not hard work, but time consuming doing soak-feed-soak and cage maintenance every night for six months. We also would take them with us when we travelled, not knowing anyone who could handle the care for them by home.

photo album page with '03 babies

They're so cute!! I hope the two eggs I got from Turbo hatch. Speaking of traveling with babies, the year I got my 3 hatchlings we took them camping that summer. They seemed to tolerate the heat and humidity a lot better than I did .