This probably sounds really weird, but can a box turtle carry her eggs inside for a full term and then give birth to live babies? The reason I'm askin is because 4wks ago I took all the soil out of their pen and mixed some old and new soil to freshen things up. I mixed all the soil by hand and didn't come across any eggs. I keep both sexes seperated. The females are in a 4'x8'pen.The depth of the soil is 8". As mentioned earlier I took out every drop of dirt in there. O.K now after doing all that, yesterday evening I see a female poking her nose in the ground as if she wants to dig a nest. I walk away for bit as she continues to sniff the ground. I come back a few minutes later and there's a baby walking around. That shocked me. Than she starts to dig, I walk away for a bit and come back to check on her and there's a baby on her shell. I thought that maybe she starting digging where some eggs were, but couldn't find a thing.
I've hatched and raised 100's of turtles (more RES than boxies) and I never heard of boxies eggs hatching in a month and I ain't heard of them giving birth to live young. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong so I can put this mystery to rest.
Oh yeah, it's not likely that those were wandering wild babies as I live in Maui, Hawaii. Thanks for your time.
