It’s Tortoise Hatchling O’clock. 1/2 blog posts

And then, just when you have given up hope of anything, because you feel like you’ve been waiting forever…  The hatching begins…

A few things you may need to know if it’s your first time….

Firstly if you are still in the prep stage, look here… https://urbatortoiseco.blogspot.com/2025/07/help-my-tortoise-laid-egg.html

And here….https://urbatortoiseco.blogspot.com/2025/07/inside-tortoise-egg-incubator.html

If you are candling the eggs, towards hatch time you will notice that you can see less and less.  This is because the hatchling will pull the membrane down (that bit you peel off the inside of your hard boiled egg shell), so the top will just look white.  If you candle from underneath you will see it is still there, but be careful not to turn the egg.  It will brake through the membrane, just before it pips, if you happen to candle it then, the egg will look all cloudy.  I’ve only managed to catch that once.  When it’s through the membrane it will use its egg tooth on the front of its beak (you can just see the egg tooth in the photo above) to scratch away at the shell until it breaks through the shell and pips!

A WORD OF CAUTION 

Please do not try to pip the egg yourself.  If an egg does not pip, there is a reason.  Maybe the tortoise has died, maybe the tortoise is disabled or sick and not compatible with life.  If you pip that egg and a tortoise hatches who was not meant to, you will likely cause it untold suffering.  It’s hard, I know, but you have to be the responsible keeper and it is now that it’s crucial.

Please don’t rush the hatching process, it can take days and for good reason.  In order to survive they have to soak all of the yolk up and the plastron (belly shell) needs to seal over. IF THE YOLK RUPTURES THEY WILL MOST LIKELY DIE.  They sit in their egg until the yolk is absorbed and they have all the energy and nutrients they need to launch into life.  They are fine to stay in the incubator throughout this process.

                                                                                                           To be continued