I GUESS I'VE DONE MY PART

I have written several posts this year dealing with turtles; those in my collection & some I have "met" -- as they crossed local roads I was on, or, in some cases, as they came walking through my yard.

I have had interaction & "yard action" with very large (& small) Snapping turtles, tiny baby turtles, Box turtles & quite a few of the most common turtle in the world -- the Red Eared Slider, so named due to the prominent red stripes on the sides of the turtles head & neck.

As I documented in my post of April 25th of this year, I found a female Red Eared Slider nesting on my South property. I marked the area she was in & returned the next day to find & dig up the nest. My post documenting the turtle's nest & the eleven eggs retrieved was titled "She Did Her Part".

The eggs, when dug up, were buried in a concoction of H2O & vermiculite, in a container, which I stored in the cupboard above my kitchen sink. With the light under the cupboard, the heat produced by the 24/7 light radiates warmth to act as an incubator. I use this system for all the reptile eggs produced by my gecko collection as well as turtle eggs.

With an average incubation range of 60 days, last week I began to check the container of eggs several times a day looking for the first signs of the baby turtles hatching.

The usual "indicators" of impending hatching will be for the eggs to swell a bit, appear to be not as tightly packed in the nesting material (as if the eggs are moving), & for cracks or "splits" to start appearing in the eggs.

This weekend -- right on schedule -- I began to see the results of my two month wait.

In the above photo, one baby is almost free of it's shell, while another turtle, in the second row of eggs, has a foot & leg making it's way free of the shell.

The hatching of a nest of turtles is usually a several day event, with most of the activity showing in my photos actually taking place down in the nest, buried in the ground. Not only do the baby turtles have to emerge from the eggs, but in nature, they then have to dig out of the ground as well. Many never make it & their birthing nest is then their burial chamber.

As the turtles hatch & complete the job of removing themselves from their eggs, I transfer each one to a small plastic cup -- kat fud came in the cups -- with wet paper towels. The smaller containers are then placed in a larger plastic tray -- a former litter box [Cat's have a vital role in this household.] & covered with a large dish towel. They will be transferred to a container with H2O when the remainder of the egg yokes -- still partially visible when they hatch -- is absorbed by the turtles.

I'll keep the 11 turtles -- 100% hatch rate !!! -- for a month or two, getting them "head-started", & then will release them in the local creek, where all my other turtle releases happen.

With the HOT/DRY weather we are having, along with the hard, sun-baked soil/dirt, even if these turtles had hatched in their original nest location in the yard, I sincerely doubt any would have survived, either in the nest, or, if they could have dug out of the ground.

The mother Red Eared Slider "... did her part". Now, I've done my part, helping these little green turtles get a start on life.