Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a box turtle laying eggs in my yard but not in an ideal area for successful incubation. I have bread chameleons and bearded dragons in the past and still have my incubation tanks set up. However, I don't know the proper conditions for turtle eggs. Any help is much appreciated!

-Nick

Until you can get put together, cover eggs with bucket with some weight on it. If you want to incubate them it's a lengthy process with a lot of attention to detail. Contact me by email:
agrafton@neo.rr.com and I'll provide details.
Alan

Thanks Alan, appreciate the help!

Nick my apologies I read your post to quick, if you have an incubation tanks the way I do it is very carefully dig up the eggs and be sure to keep the correct orientation of the eggs as you place them in a plastic tub, like Tupperware, with vermiculite in the tub, then put that in 10 gallon tank with heater and cover. I keep the temperature around 78-82 degrees opening the top every so often to let off condensation also spray/ mist water over eggs a few times over the incubation period. If you need me to answer anything your not clear on let me know. One of my big females just loaid 5 big eggs around May 18, which is real early, expect them to hatch mid to late July.
Alan

i had great success last year

i suspended a small sand filled terrarium in a 20 high aquarium

the inner unit was set on top of an inverted small flowerpot

i ran 2 aquarium heaters in the water that was even with the top of the sand in the inner terrarium.

one heater was set to 80,
and the other was set to 85 and on a 12 hr on, 12 hr off timer

the eggs were in a depression in the middle of the terrarium and covered with a damp paper towel

the thermal mass of sand was very stable in temperature and i could easily check on the eggs under the papertowel

a sheet of plexiglas acted as a cover over the aquarium

all the eggs hatched