Iris is in labor!

My suspicions were true!  Iris has been acting funny lately...not her usual cheerful self.  We had our friend's tortoise Max stay with us while they were on vacation in the spring and my daughter Elle was always the one to catch them mating.  But luckily I don't have to have "the talk" with her yet since she would say that Iris is giving Max piggy back rides.  So this morning labor has begun and we are quietly observing and documenting her progress.

Meanwhile, Elle, our animal saver rescued a date beetle that was stuck in a spider web from a slow and painful death from an army of red ants.  She definitely takes after her father with her reptile, insect, and amphibian catching abilities.  

Here's a little info on the reproductive habits of the desert tortoise...

Tortoises mate in the spring and in the fall. Male desert tortoises will grow two large white glands around the chin area, called Chin Glands, that signify mating season.

Males will circle around females, biting the shells of the females in the process, and then will proceed to climb upon the female and insert his penis (a white organ, usually only seen upon careful inspection during mating, as it is hidden inside the male and can only be coaxed out with sexual implication) into the vagina of a female.(located around the tail) The male may also proceed to make grunting noises once atop a female, and may move front legs up and down in a constant motion.(as if playing a drum. Months later, the female will lay a clutch of from 4 to 8 hard-shelled-eggs (which are the size and shape of ping-pong balls), usually in June or July, and they hatch in August or September. Wild female tortoises can produce 2 or possibly 3 clutches a year. Their eggs incubate from 90 to 135 days. Tortoises reach sexual maturity at the age of 15. With a high mortality rate, their average life expectancy is between 50 to 80 years if they survive past 20 years of age.


Here is a great resource on desert tortoises...


http://www.mojavedata.gov/deserttortoise_gov/index.html


I now have approximately 90 days to figure out the fate of the baby tortoises.  We adopted Iris from the Living Desert, a local zoo that has a tortoise adoption program.  Desert tortoises are often displaced because of habitat loss due to new construction in the area.  It would be great if we could aid in the recovery efforts of the desert tortoise in the wild.