Some good news at last. My biggest Hermanns decided to lay three eggs last night. She decided to lay in the hide she use's at night which is deep filled with soil and warm. Unfortunately in the process of digging in for the night last night, she disturbed the eggs and one broke. This is how I found out she'd laid, when I check d she was tucked in for the night I saw the eggs. I've only had Molly since February, she was previously in the company of another Hermanns with the previous owner (they were split due to aggression) so I'm hoping they are fertile.

Due to my unpreparedness I'd like to say a huge thankyou to the TPG for the excellent build your own incubator guide which I followed last night. Fingers crossed here.

Dave.

Hi Dave,

What brilliant news, and I'm so pleased for you -- and well done to Molly! I'm glad you found the incubator guide useful, and hopefully it will do the trick for you, and in what some would call 'no time at all' but others would call 'a seemingly endless wait' you'll have two lovely little tort babies.

Keep us posted and photos are always welcome!

Nina

Thanks Nina (although Molly did all the hard work).

I had a discussion with Danny on SW a while back as Molly is a T Hermanni Hercegovinensis and he described to me a paper that said that there was a much better hatch rate for T H Hercegovinensis at 28 to 30C so I'm running at 29-30 in the incubator. He said this does not affect the male/female sex determination ratio and that he has hatched females at this lower temperature after suffering losses midway through incubation at higher temperatures with Testudo Hermanni Hercegovinensis.

That's really interesting about different incubation temperatures for T.h.herc! Good luck and I can't wait to see the photos of your babies.

Nina

Quick update. Something is happening, one egg has "chalked up".

Oh Dave, that's great -- and how exciting! Can you take some photos and post them?

Nina

Great news Dave:-)

My pleasure, I've created a "Kirkies Egg" folder in the members gallery. I'll add to it as things happen!

Brilliant photo, Dave!  I look forward to more

Nina