I don't remember posting anything about this story to date, so here is the story from start to finish. About 9 weeks ago, I was getting ready to burn a large pile of brush that I had cleared from our property. I had some newspaper stuffed into one side, to help start the fire. As I was bending down to light the fire, lighter in hand, I spotted a 3 toed box turtle laying eggs right next to the brush pile. Well, we let her finish laying her eggs, and prior to her covering up the hole, I grabbed her and let her go in the woods next to the fire. We then proceeded to fish the eggs out of the nest and set them up in a box on some perlite and vermiculite. We incubated the eggs for about nine weeks, and were rewarded with 4 cute little box turtles.

I know very little about turtles, but have always enjoyed finding them in the wild, and have been doing some heavy reading on how to take care of these guys. I think we are going to keep them inside through this winter, and will probably build them a pen outside next spring.

Here are the pics:
First up is the first turtle to emerge from the egg. You can see the other three have pipped, but are still sitting in their temporary homes.


The next picture is all of the babies in their new home after hatching. None of them have started to eat yet, but they do have a little yolk still to absorb, so hopefully soon, they will start eating on their own.


I hope you enjoy the pics as much as I am enjoying the babies,