Shipping tortoise eggs?
 

There is currently a vendor selling tortoise eggs. I am curious as to whether the transportation process would damage the eggs or render them unhatchable. Does anyone have experience or an opinion? I would think that if a well known vendor sold eggs and none hatched the subject would come up in the BOI, and this vendor has no adverse BOI reports, but I am still curious about the general subject.
There is a completely different issue, the sale of parrot eggs, and that is often a scam because of the low cost of the eggs compared to the very high cost of the birds which may run into many tens of thousands of dollars, plus there are various national export statutes, so I feel the two subjects are not comparable.
But I'm mostly interested in the biological explanations, and whether temperature and positional fluctuations during shipping would have an affect on the eggs.

I’ve never owned a tortoise and have absolutely no experience with them. However I have shipped chameleon eggs before, shortly after they were laid. The hatch rate was a lot higher than I expected, if I remember correctly, 9 out of 10 hatched. I believe it was about a week after laying and I shipped them overnight as if a live reptile.

Again, these were not tortoises.

I don’t think it is a scam but I’m sure there are risks involved. Price and risk, versus payoff.

There is nothing preventing buyers from simply buying already hatched animals. I'm just curious about the shipping process and how it affects tortoise eggs.

Of course if I was going to actually send hard earned dollars, I'd do an internet search and see how many vendors sold tortoise eggs and do some research into the success of the process, and for sure I would ask the vendor for references of actual successful sales. If I got references I'd check 'em, if I didn't, I'd pass.

I don't mind spending a dollar on a lottery ticket, but if these eggs are more than a dollar, I'd do fact checking and reference checking.

I agree 100% with researching the process and the person. In my case, I was giving them away and no money was involved.

Jason what a nice thing that was for you to do!!

No personal experience with tortoises here either, but I would imagine it works well with tortoises because of something involving the "chalking" process, where the egg whitens if it is fertile a few days after hatching. Unlike some reptile eggs, where you can tell fertility almost immediately (which I imagine indicates the embryo has begun and is more fragile?), tortoises have that wait period, so they may be more forgiving for the time period before they chalk.

This is all speculation, I'm no expert on the biology of eggs, but that is what would make most sense to me logically looking at the development process.

Email me, I’ll give you references. Tortstork@gmail.com. Just shippped put some eggs yesterday. All are safe and sound in their incubator. I ask customers to do unboxing videos, I post them on my YouTube channel. And I post the link on my website. I will be uploading the unboxing of the ones today, early tomorrow morning. If you want to see the videos now, email me. If you want to chat about the process, email me, I’ll give you my cell so we can chat. I wicked passionate about this venture. It works.

Randy it would be good if your references (egg purchasers with positive outcomes, meaning they not only got there but they hatched into healthy baby turtles) could post on the BOI. And this thread would be a great place for you to go over the process and answer questions as I find the idea interesting and would like to get the particulars.

Incubation temperature determines sex, so I'd imagine constant temperature during shipping would be vital, but I don't know at what stage in the egg development.

I've just had a look at the thread that started this discussion ( http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...=651238&page=2 ), and without being ANY sort of tortoise expert, but being a basic biologist, I'd hazard a guess that if they are shipped VERY early after laying, (and at a stable temperature, not sure how you'd control that), before there has been much cell division, you might be OK, apart from the gamble as to whether they were fertile or not. If you ship once the embryo develops further and starts to differentiate into specific tissues and organs, the risk of movement affecting the development would be much greater.

However, I restate my ignorance of the specifics - these are just thoughts.

Just do it yourself, it's not crazy expensive and they you will know beyond any further doubt.