Turtle Eggs Found

Hi,
As I was planting a new garden I dug up some grass and to my surprise I found a nest full of turtle eggs. We have a land turtle, but it has no one to mate with, so I am assuming it is one of our sliders from our pond who has been roaming our back yard for about a month now. My question is what should I do with it? Will they hatch if I leave them alone? I put back a chunk of grass to cover the hole. I would really love to hatch these, but not sure what I should do. Any advice???
Thanks

Hi misee and welcome to the forum!

Here is a link to Robyn's turtle page:
http://www.fishpondinfo.com/turtles/index.htm

I don't know anything about them but we do have some turtle people that may be on the forum later today that might be of some help and forsure Robyn will be on tomorrow! There are also lots of threads about them here on the forum. Check out the Pond section too as there are posts there about them.

Good luck with your eggs I hope they hatch!
Tia

Thank you Tia,
I just read the article about hatching turtles. I guess I am off to the store to buy some vermiculite. I am so excited about this, I hope that they hatch!
Marla

Me too Marla!

I think this post should be in the Reptile section but I am not sure. I never really know where to put the turtles so I'll let Robyn move to the best place.
Tia

misee

The very best thing to do is to simply put dirt back over them and leave them alone. They will probably hatch, but if they were layed recently, the hatchlings may not emerge from the nest until next spring and will spend the winter in the nest, depending where you are located. If you are going to remove them from the nest (hole in the ground) mark the top of each egg with a marker so that you can put them in the incubator in the same position (relative to top and bottom of the egg). If those eggs have been in the nest for very long, rotation of the egg to a different position will likely kill the embryo. Keep the bedding material moist, but not wet. Incubation temperature should be warm and constant. Figure 70 to 80 days for hatching. Good luck

Don

By the way, this is July 7. Exactly one year ago today, I watched one of my turtles dig a nest and lay her eggs. The first week of last October, I carefully dug up the nest and found 6 hatchlings, removed them to an aquarium and watched them grow from quarter size to 3 inch length at this time. You can see videos of those hatchlings on my website http://donaldperry.spaces.live.com

Yesterday, two of my turtles layed their eggs.

Don

Hi Don,
What a beautiful pond you have! Cute turtles too.........I am still torn on what to do with the eggs. Not sure if I should move them or not. I would love for them to hatch and possibly make another pond just for my turtles. Thanks for sharing.
Marla

Marla, the best thing for the eggs would be to try to keep them exactly where they were in the same position and everything. If that area is damaged, you might try to incubate them indoors with vermiculite but that would require more work from you. Turtles seem to hatch better with Mother Nature in charge. What I've read about hatching turtle eggs is on my site which you already read but I've not done it myself. Don has more experience with turtles than I. Good luck!

Exspecially you have know idea how long they have been there, I moved my eggs from downstairs to upstairs, outlit was bad downstairs, and just moving them as carefully as i could, they moved a little to much and i killed 3 of the eggs