Hi All,

I bought a hand made incubator some time ago in the vain hope that I would be lucky enough to breed. Thankfully now my tort has a mate which is interested and so finger crossed.

The incubator I bought is 14" by 14" by 14" - can someone tell me if this is going to be big enough ??? The really expensive ones you can buy on e-bay dont look very big to me.

I did try it out for size last year with 3 unfertilised eggs - what if say ......3 eggs hatched whilst I was at work - would the babies have room to roam around !!!

Help please.

Michelle x

Hi Michelle,

So long as the temps and humidity are fine, it doesn't matter how large the incubator is. What make is the on you purchased?

TC
Darren

Hi Michelle

As Darren has said, as long as the temps and humidity are OK, your incubator sounds fine for size, you would only need larger if you were planning on incubating a lot more eggs!  Hatching is quite a tiring process for a tortoise, so once they are out of the shell, the babies need to rest, so generally will dig down into the sand or vermiculite that the eggs are sitting on, so space to roam is not a requirement!

Have you read the Captive Breeding section on the website - lots of good information on there, including a section on how to build your own incubator.  It is very straightforward and if you did need a larger one it would save you a lot of money!  Click on The Tortoise in the menu on the left, and then Captive Breeding.

Good luck with your eggs!

atb

Arlene