Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey everyone, my first tortoise is finally hatching today! My question is that the second egg from the same clutch is hatching funny. The outer shell has been cracked and flaked off at the bottom of the egg, the membrane still seems to fully intact. Is the baby having trouble getting through the inner membrane? The cluthc has been incubating for 196 days, so I know that the baby is viable, you can't see it in the pic, but with the naked eye, you can make out the areolas on the shell in the egg! Very cool. Any thoughts would be appreciated! Thanks.

Allegra

That baby might be having a hard time cutting through the inner membrane. I would recommend very gently pulling open the membrane near the head of the tortoise to give it some help. Then make sure its head protrudes from the egg and it begins breathing and trying to get out. If its head comes out for a while but then drops back in the egg (possibly due to fatigue), remove the whole top half of the egg so it won't drown in the albumin. If the yolk sac is pretty well gone, just remove the tortoise from the egg entirely. If not, leave it in the lower half of the egg for 12 hours or so and keep checking every 8 hours thereafter to see when the yolk sac has dimished enough to take it out of the egg shell all the way.

Honestly... the egg does not look like anything I've seen as good.

It might be getting ready to 'explode'.

If there is a viable hatchling inside that can pop the shell and not the membrane... it wasn't meant to survive.

I removed troubled hatchlings in the beginnig... wasn't worth it.

Again... if it don't hatch... wasn't meant to... IMHO

>>Hey everyone, my first tortoise is finally hatching today! My question is that the second egg from the same clutch is hatching funny. The outer shell has been cracked and flaked off at the bottom of the egg, the membrane still seems to fully intact. Is the baby having trouble getting through the inner membrane? The cluthc has been incubating for 196 days, so I know that the baby is viable, you can't see it in the pic, but with the naked eye, you can make out the areolas on the shell in the egg! Very cool. Any thoughts would be appreciated! Thanks.
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>>Allegra
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Ed @ Tortoise Keepers
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care