# First clutch for 2019



## Flaviemys purvisi (Oct 27, 2019)

One of my _Chelodina longicollis_ is back-filling her nest chamber now after laying... About to dig up my first clutch for the season. It's a perfect egg laying afternoon for turtles, 32 degrees, still and humid... Could be a storm brewing. Hope my other gravid turtles follow her lead! 


Still deep in her zombie -like egg laying trance, Miss reliable, always plays ball and gets the job done without any complications. Back-filling her 1st of a possible 3 clutches for the season. If only she knew I've got to dig them all up... could save her the time and effort of filling the nest in! 


A straight 10. Pretty stoked with that and they're all a good uniform size... Last year she laid 2 clutches 8 weeks apart with 2 eggs in each clutch about half the size of the rest. Those hatchies were the size of 5c coins upon hatching. Into a container of vermiculite dampened with water by weight at 1:1


Into the Incubator set at 28 degrees C. I should know how many if any are fertile/viable within the next 12 to 72 hours. 



Now we wait. Fingers crossed!


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## Herpetology (Oct 27, 2019)

Are the lights important for turtle egg incubation?


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## Sdaji (Oct 27, 2019)

Herptology said:


> Are the lights important for turtle egg incubation?



They're for heat.

Not too many people are still using party globes as heat sources these days!


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## Herpetology (Oct 27, 2019)

Sdaji said:


> They're for heat.
> 
> Not too many people are still using party globes as heat sources these days!


Oh.. for some reason I thought there was heat cord (invisible heat cord I guess) after reading all the diy threads involving heatcord 

Also I recognise that thermostat, I have one but not even sure where it’s come from..


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## Flaviemys purvisi (Oct 27, 2019)

Sdaji said:


> They're for heat.
> 
> Not too many people are still using party globes as heat sources these days!


Hehe yeah... but they're cheap as and perfect for the job!


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## Sdaji (Oct 27, 2019)

Flaviemys purvisi said:


> Hehe yeah... but they're cheap as and perfect for the job!



Haha, I didn't know they were still available! Brings back some fond memories


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## Flaviemys purvisi (Oct 27, 2019)

Herptology said:


> Also I recognise that thermostat, I have one but not even sure where it’s come from..




[doublepost=1572174635,1572174441][/doublepost]


Sdaji said:


> Haha, I didn't know they were still available! Brings back some fond memories


Bunnings Warehouse mate. Still got a box of 10 in the garage.


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## Herpetology (Oct 28, 2019)

the other one haha, the one with the metal probe and annoying wire


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## Flaviemys purvisi (Oct 28, 2019)

Herptology said:


> the other one haha, the one with the metal probe and annoying wire


Yeah that's the safety back up... it's set 2 degrees above the the other one... if the primary one malfunctions, the power will be switched off to prevent the eggs from over heating and cooking.


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## Mick666 (Oct 28, 2019)

Is ten eggs a large clutch for those? I didn't think they would lay that many.


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## Melmy (Oct 28, 2019)

Those party globes are what I used to use for the pythons I kept 20 years ago! :O Good to see they are still rocking about 
Good luck to your gorgeous turtle mumma - what a champ!

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk


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## Flaviemys purvisi (Oct 28, 2019)

Mick666 said:


> Is ten eggs a large clutch for those? I didn't think they would lay that many.


Average clutch size is 8 but they can lay as many as 24 in 1 go. They lay 3 clutches a season so she's got a few to go yet.


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## Mick666 (Oct 28, 2019)

3 clutches a season! wow, that's so cool.


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## Flaviemys purvisi (Oct 29, 2019)

Mick666 said:


> 3 clutches a season! wow, that's so cool.


She's only 10 years old mate, still a baby... only 2/3 her adult size yet... still got another 8-10cm of growth yet over the next decade... by the time she's 20 shell be laying around 60 eggs over 3 clutches per season.
[doublepost=1572335125,1572224540][/doublepost]UPDATE: 

After 2 full days of incubation, 9 out of the 10 eggs have started to band. Probably not obviously visible yet to you all in this photograph but I've inspected them individually with an intense LED torch. 5 days remaining for egg #1 before it's discarded.


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## Allan (Oct 30, 2019)

Flaviemys purvisi said:


> Yeah that's the safety back up... it's set 2 degrees above the the other one... if the primary one malfunctions, the power will be switched off to prevent the eggs from over heating and cooking.



Very important information. 20 years ago, I cooked 4 batches of python eggs when the thermostat died and let the temp up to 42 degrees over night.


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## Flaviemys purvisi (Oct 30, 2019)

Allan said:


> Very important information. 20 years ago, I cooked 4 batches of python eggs when the thermostat died and let the temp up to 42 degrees over night.


Oh damn! 32 degrees is the upper limit for turtle eggs... Above that and they're toast.
[doublepost=1572413130,1572402693][/doublepost]UPDATE:

After the 3rd full day of incubation, all 10 eggs have banded. Very happy! Exactly 2 weeks before this clutch was laid, back on Sunday, October 13th I awoke at 5:30 am to discover my ELN over-night had dumped a single egg in her aquarium. I retrieved it immediately and incubated in for 4 days after which it showed no signs of banding at all... I then discarded it. It's most likely that during fertilisation 2 weeks ago, it was never fertilised or something else was wrong with it. Turtles are good like that, will discard any dodgy eggs prior to the clutch being laid. How they can selectively do this, internally is pretty cool, also having the ability to store sperm from 5 different males for up to 4 years and selectively fertilise each egg or an entire clutch with the sperm from 1 particular male or from all 5 is something pretty incredible.

On another note, if all goes well, this clutch is due to start hatching on December 31st, New Year's Eve! Will be up all night now!


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## dragonlover1 (Oct 30, 2019)

sounds like you will have an exciting NYE, good luck mate. I currently have eggs from 2 different species of dragon and waiting on a third, plus I have a frilly at a mates place hoping for a bit of hanky panky


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## Flaviemys purvisi (Nov 2, 2019)

UPDATE:
Day 6 of incubation, progress is looking good although egg #3 is noticeably lagging behind now. Will keep an eye on it, it may just be taking longer (normal) or it's stopped calcifying.


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## dragonlover1 (Nov 2, 2019)

Good luck with your eggs Kev, it sounds a lot more complicated than my dragons which are a lot of work but are simpler to care for.


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## Flaviemys purvisi (Dec 31, 2019)

Thanks mate. Always an exciting but equally anxious time of year. Can't wait to see pics of your baby dragons!
[doublepost=1574547422,1572692128][/doublepost]It's been 28 days since her 1st clutch was laid and now she's at it again. I put her out 75 minutes ago and she's been wandering around unsettled the whole time, I was about to give up for the morning and bring her back inside as I need to head off into town, I went to collect her and found that she'd started nesting for her 2nd of 3 clutches for the season. She was waiting for the sun to get higher. 




Time to prepare another tub for the incubator.
[doublepost=1574550786][/doublepost]OK and we're all done. The compacted nest chamber is clearly visible and easy for me to locate. 


Sometimes ELN will go to the trouble of disguising the area by walking back and forth over it, they usually do this if they know their nesting has been observed. 

Because ELN use their plastron like a compacter as they backfill the nest chamber, excavating the eggs is extremely tedious. They are packed in so tightly that trying to loosen them can easily result in them breaking. But so far so good. 



Normally the 2nd clutch of the season is bigger than the first however on this occassion the clutch of 8 is smaller than her 1st clutch of 10. The telling difference though is that these 8 eggs are substantially larger than the 10 in the 1st clutch. 



Into the incubator with the others to cook for 60 days.


Mum's back in her aquarium and already getting plenty of attention from her boyfriend which I'm sure she's not at all impressed with so soon. 

Hope everyone's having a productive season. So looking forward to seeing the fruit of everyone's labour and seeing everyone's hatchies

All the best!
[doublepost=1577762329][/doublepost]Clutch #1 which was laid back on October 27 and due to hatch from today is showing signs of hatching on schedule... the cracks are already appearing as the tiny turtles are working to free themselves... could be very late tonight or very early tomorrow morning... 

Won't be sleeping tonight!
[automerge]1629442569[/automerge]
@Friller2009


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