Soaking up the rays

Thanks for the updates.

We are ridiculously invested in this

She's also getting a little aggressive. If you come close to her nest she starts digging, not to make the nest larger but just to toss dirt at you.

I walked out there today and when she saw me she started tossing dirt, the dirt was flying at least four feet in the air, right at me! She wants nothing to do with anyone right now.

sounds like my friend Betty just before she had her first baby

We should do a naming competition.

Hey, that's just like my ex.

And we have tortoise eggs. We can’t get to them and we don’t know how many is in the clutch. She buried them and stomped on the dirt she cracked the top layer so we have decided to let nature take its course and let them hatch on their own.

She buried them so deep you would never get them out without cracking the rest of the eggs. I’m going to get some wire fencing and just fence off the area and wait and see what happens.

She’s been stampeding around the side yard and now she’s eating like a horse again!!

Takes lots of patience to grow turtles.

Yes it does! I had some of this garden fencing in the garage so I’ve covered up the nest and fenced it off. She weighs 40lbs and we have no idea how many of them will survive; she’s not the most graceful animal.

yay!

I thought it might kill her but she hung in there! They have claws when they hatch so hopefully they will be able to dig themselves out of the nest.

Now's she's back to her old self, walking and eating, walking and eating all day long. She'll probably gain another 10 to 20 lbs in the next year!

You hung in there and so did you guys!

Well she wasn't done. Today she plowed down the fence, started digging in the nest and she's been in it for two hours. Could be laying a few more eggs.

Always remember what the French say":
"One egg is an oeuf!"

Congrats on Tortoise papa-dom. In real life, not many survive but with your caring and nursing, may there be many survivors.

Plowed down the fence!! Oh, my, oh my.

edit, to ehBeth, great minds with the same expletives!

She buried a few more in the same spot and walked off to another location for the evening.

I had no clue what these animals did in the wild but I sure have learned a lot from her. We both read quite a bit online but to be honest I really don't think most people have a clue what these animals actually do in the wild.

Now if you read about them it says you have to soak them once a day or every other day, now how do these animals soak in the wild? They come from the edge of the Sahara desert?

I've definitely learned a lot about sulcatas since jcboy started posting here.

Between what you've both posted and what I've read in tortoise forums ...

This animal isn’t finished laying her eggs, the problem is she is stepping on them when she tries to cover them up, I managed to get three out but two of them have a slight crack. They’re very delicate, not hard to the touch like a regular egg.

She's coming out to feed.

It’s hard to see in the photo but this Tortoise has now dug the tunnel at least five feet deep and it’s getting bigger everyday. She’s now digging up under the tree in the side yard.

I think she has outgrown her area in CA and we will have to make a decision to send her off to the tortoise farm soon. We can’t keep her here when she’s 150lbs, she will tunnel her way under the house and she’s too heavy to build another tortoise pen with pavers, it’s not good for their feet when they get too heavy.

Now I know why I don't have a turtle. I don't like losing pets.