Uploaded October 2010 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
On June 3rd I discovered a painted turtle laying eggs in a hole she dug in my yard. I marked the spot with a rock after she left so I wouldn't run over the nest with my lawn mower and researched the incubation period on the internet. I found that it should take 60-70 days for the eggs to hatch so I marked the calendar and waited. The next morning I fount the female turtle dead on the road in front of my house which she was crossing in attempt to get back to her pond. Interestingly, the next day I heard an announcement on the news that motorists should watch for turtles crossing roads as it was the nesting period for them. Too bad the announcement didn't come a day or two earlier. About August 12th I started checking the nest site a couple times a day waiting for the newborn turtles to emerge from the ground, and waited, and waited, and waited... Finally on Sept 24th I decided to dig up the nest expecting the eggs to be rotted. Surprisingly I found 6 baby turtles all out of their eggs. At first I thought they were dead as none of them were moving. I think they had trouble digging out of the hard rock filled earth. I placed them in a dish with a little water and shortly they all became very active. I should mention that there were 3 more undeveloped eggs at the bottom of the nest that had gotten crushed. Perhaps a deer stepped on the nest at some point. Anyway I brought the six survivors to the neighbors pond and released them. Hopefully they will survive a long time.
On June 3rd I discovered a painted turtle laying eggs in a hole she dug in my yard. I marked the spot with a rock after she left so I wouldn't run over the nest with my lawn mower and researched the incubation period on the internet. I found that it should take 60-70 days for the eggs to hatch so I marked the calendar and waited. The next morning I fount the female turtle dead on the road in front of my house which she was crossing in attempt to get back to her pond. Interestingly, the next day I heard an announcement on the news that motorists should watch for turtles crossing roads as it was the nesting period for them. Too bad the announcement didn't come a day or two earlier. About August 12th I started checking the nest site a couple times a day waiting for the newborn turtles to emerge from the ground, and waited, and waited, and waited... Finally on Sept 24th I decided to dig up the nest expecting the eggs to be rotted. Surprisingly I found 6 baby turtles all out of their eggs. At first I thought they were dead as none of them were moving. I think they had trouble digging out of the hard rock filled earth. I placed them in a dish with a little water and shortly they all became very active. I should mention that there were 3 more undeveloped eggs at the bottom of the nest that had gotten crushed. Perhaps a deer stepped on the nest at some point. Anyway I brought the six survivors to the neighbors pond and released them. Hopefully they will survive a long time.
