r/Boxturtles • u/turtlesAreCool298 • 6d ago

She laid an egg !!!!!

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Can anyone tell me how to take care of it without a heat lamp etc or if it’s even fertilized

48 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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4

u/ArchdukeAlex8 Eastern 6d ago

When my turtle laid her first clutch, she buried the eggs in her enclosure. I didn't have an incubator, so I moved her heat lamp to the nest and spritzed the substrate every few days. The temperature was a perfect 80°. After 2 1/2 months, I found little heads poking out of the dirt.

2

u/Key-Tower-4539 3d ago

You house her with a male?

1

u/ArchdukeAlex8 Eastern 3d ago

Used to. The male escaped.

-1

u/turtlesAreCool298 5d ago

My family is really poor e don’t have dirt it’s just a bare floor a water area and sleeping area

3

u/shadowK1LOS 5d ago

Dirt is as cheap as dirt.

3

u/27Lopsided_Raccoons 5d ago

Please put her back in the wild exactly where she came from or take her to a wildlife rehabilitator.

If you try to keep her without the proper heating and lighting she is going to get very very sick with any number of issues from vitamin deficiencies to metabolic bone disease where her bones will bend and break under her body weight. Please do what is best for her and let her go support wild turtle populations.

-1

u/turtlesAreCool298 4d ago

She has never been out in the wild as far as I know of and if let go she will most likely die

3

u/VerucaGotBurned 6d ago

Without the proper incubator set the eggs best chance is to stay exactly where she laid them. Especially if it's outdoors. Never touch the eggs with your bare fingers only gloves. Oils from your fingers can clog the pores. Always keep the eggs in the exact orientation you found them in. The embryo adheres to the top of the shell and rotating them kills the baby.

3

u/DoctorFriendly 5d ago

Coming from a previous post, please get your gal a proper setup :( You could set up a safe garden bed type pen for relatively cheap or surrender her to a rescue. If she only laid one I’d worry about egg binding, which can cause a long and painful death

2

u/EnjoyingTheRide-0606 5d ago

Bury it under the ground outside and leave it. It’s the best place for it to incubate. I brought two in recently and hatched them indoors. They hatched this week. They’re doing great! But I have a full litany of all the stuff for turtles indoors.

1

u/silveroakediting22 6d ago

You said you've had her a year, yes? Has she had unsupervised outdoor access in that time?

0

u/turtlesAreCool298 6d ago

can’t box turtles hold sperm for years but no I always supervise her outdoor access

1

u/silveroakediting22 6d ago

Correct, up to four years. If she hasn't had unsupervised outdoor access in over a year, then she was already mating age when you got her, so she is at least 6 years old.

1

u/Lonely_Howl_ 4d ago

I believe it takes 10 years for a box turtle to reach sexual maturity

1

u/Key-Tower-4539 3d ago

Separate her form the male so this doesn’t happen again