Hello All

I have just seen on another forum that someones Tortoise Eggs in the incubator are due to hatch and it's possible there's twins in there...Can this happen? Can there be problems if theres' two trying to hatch from just the one egg? I have found this fascinating, never thought of the possibilty of twins. Awww Claire

Hi Claire,

We've had several sets of twins here from three different mothers, we did have triplets once, but only one of the babies was viable. The problem with twins is that they often share the same eggs sac and so depending on their closeness to the egg sac, one often gets the lion's sare of the food. It is difficult to tell if an egg is a twin egg until they actually hatch. The mortality rate with twin eggs is unfortunately high and more often than not, neither actually survive. We had twins in an egg this year, but neither hatched:-)
We've also had siamese twins, but again they didn't make it out of the egg:-(

TC
Darren

Hi Darren and Thanks for your reply :) Wow! Thats so amazing but sad too if they don't survive :( Can I ask how do you know there are two/three in there if egg hasn't hatched? Is the shell transparent then?
It must be heartbreaking to lose your babies, I don't think I could breed I'd be sobbing all the time. It would feel like i'd done something wrong:(

Darren, I have just re read your reply, Siamese?? Good God!! WOW!! Thats very sad, so sad!

Hi Claire,
It is very sad & upsetting, but it is nature & whislt we always do what we can for them - if things aren't meant to be.......:-(
Seeing a bay tortoise hatch is like a little miracle everytime and so makes up for the few times things don't go quite right.

You can see inside the eggs if you shine a maglite torch on the eggs in the dark. We did see the three tortoises in the triplet egg (not that we actually believed it could be right at the time), but none of the others. It's a case of catching them at the right time size-wise to make out the tortoises.

Hope you're well

TC
Darren