Help - I think my girl needs to lay eggs

[Stehaggan]

I have a male and female tortoise.

Last year the female laid 2 eggs on the substrate - the environment mustnt have been suitable for her to nest as they were just on top and didn't hatch.

My two have mated this last year and my female has now become a bit restless and clawing the tank etc.

As it about the same time of year as she laid last year.

I want to make her her own enclosure that would be suitable for her to lay in. At present she has a kind of gravel substrate thing which she can dig but it isn't massively deep.

Does anyone have any phtoos of a suitable nesting box or details of how I could construct one as I want to give her the opportunity to lay if she needs to and without the male being with her.

[egyptiandan64]

If you want to make a second enclosure to lay in, I'd go with one thats 3 feet by 2 feet and at least 18 inches deep. This way you can have the whole enclosure with at least 8 inches of substrate (topsoil is perfect). Just set it up like a normal enclosure.

Danny

[alley cat]

Take the male out then! it is not kind to leave 1 male and 1 female tortoise in any enclosed space where the female cannot escape the males advances when she wants to, the ideal ratio is at least 3 famles to 1 male, for that you obviously need more space than you would currently have in a tank.
I dont have pics to hand of a nest site but it needs to be quite deep (almost as deep as the tort is long) so she can dig without hitting the bottom, warm earth that is moist enough to press down fairly firmly, she needs to be able to dig a lightbulb shaped hole into it without the earth collapsing, a light shining on it may also help, but not so close as to overheat the tortoise. Hope this helps.

[Jemma1]

You need to make a huge heap of soil soaking wet with hot water and pack it down nice and compact. That way she can make a nest that wont fall apart. It needs to be nice and deep under a light and heat source. In my experience they like nesting on slopes.

Heres some pics of one of my girls nesting inside when the weather was bad outside.

[kazzabb]

Originally Posted by Stehaggan

I have a male and female tortoise.

Last year the female laid 2 eggs on the substrate - the environment mustnt have been suitable for her to nest as they were just on top and didn't hatch.

My two have mated this last year and my female has now become a bit restless and clawing the tank etc.

As it about the same time of year as she laid last year.

I want to make her her own enclosure that would be suitable for her to lay in. At present she has a kind of gravel substrate thing which she can dig but it isn't massively deep.

Does anyone have any phtoos of a suitable nesting box or details of how I could construct one as I want to give her the opportunity to lay if she needs to and without the male being with her.

Hi, when one of mine was due to lay, I got an old deep wooden drawer from an old chest-of-drawers, from the tip. Cut out the top half of one end and kept the cut-out bit for a ramp (with some bird-cage sandpaper stuck to it for grip). Decided where the drawer was going to be situated, put a liner on the floor much larger than the size of the drawer, then lined the drawer with a thick black plastic bin-liner and filled it with topsoil and hot water, flattened the topsoil down quite a lot and hung a floodlight 32par lamp overhead. The soil makes a bit of a mess - hence the liner underneath the drawer. A large deep plastic storage box would do. I'm always amazed at how deep they dig, and balance just on the edge of their nest always looking as if they are about to fall backwards, and afterwards, it's as if there's no nest at all. I was exhausted just watching all that digging, pushing the eggs out and filling in the nest, and I was only holding my mobile phone!
Nice photos Jemma1
Good luck.
Karen

[Stehaggan]

Hi guys, i made a box similar to those in the picture, I could tell today she wanted to lay, she spent ages building a nest but seemed to be struggling. The after a few hours she climbed out and left it.

She seemed to be straining quite a lot. I left her to it and just decided to give her a little bath before I go to bed.

I have just put her back in the box and she has pretty instantly laid one egg on the top of the soil and now crawled back in the nest and is just lay there.

What do you advise me to do? I will have to get an incubator tomorrow.

She seemed to be really straining before and her tail was massive so I hoped the bath would help her - didn't expect it to literally drop out when she was back in though

[egyptiandan64]

Has she done any more digging today?

Danny

[Stehaggan]

Hi - she has only been digging to bury herself :-/

I went to the reptile shop before to be able to incubate the egg. I asked if I should leave her in there and was told yes as she may lay more and could take over 30 days. I am just going to keep my eye on her. I have the egg in an incubator now with a temp of 30 verified by a digital thermometer so we will see how that goes on :-/