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Project Noah Nature School
Terrapene carolina carolina
Turtle with yellow markings on the shell
Front yard
Turtle with yellow spots Was digging a hole in my flower bed with its back feet. Amazing to see. Was it laying eggs?
Sounds great! You mostly will have to worry about mammals coming and digging up the eggs, lizards will too but I'm not aware of any lizards in TN that really target eggs. Hope it all works out :)
Me too! Right now I have a layer of rocks encircling the area. Until I can get something better. Thank you for all your help! This is so awesome
That's awesome! Well I hope the eggs make it and your daughter gets the chance to see the little babies!
Cool! Yes the mama turtle covered the hole back up. I went outside several hrs later and she had filled in the hole and was sitting on top of it. Then this morning my daughter went bolting out the door first thing this morning and was sad that mama turtle was not there.
It takes a few months for them to hatch, but it is common for the baby turtles to stay in the nest through winter (they can survive on yolk inside the eggs for many months). Here is a great article I found that takes you through the process of box turtle nests: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/11...
As far as protecting the area, maybe just putting a wire box cage over it to keep anything from digging up the eggs should be sufficient, just make sure the wire is big enough for the baby turtles to get through when they do come out of the nest. Before you go through all this trouble, you might want to gently remove dirt away from the area until you see eggs just to make sure there are actually eggs there, but be very careful not to move them or this will kill the babies, then cover them back up with dirt. It is common for turtles to dig "test nests" to look for ideal conditions for the real nest, but they normally don't cover the nest nests back up but do cover up the real nest, so that is another way to tell. Then in a few months you can find little baby turtles and take lots of pictures for an adorable spotting :)
How long does it take for the yellow box Turtles eggs to Hatch and what could I do to protect the area?
Looks to be digging a nest for her eggs! Also, turtles are reptiles and should be in that category instead of amphibians :)
Spotted on Jun 19, 2013
Submitted on Jun 19, 2013
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