I went up to my uncle‘s cabin in Wisconsin and we stumbled upon a painted turtle‘s egg nest. He thought the hole was a snake hole, so he covered it all up. But when we saw a mother painted turtle nearby, we had thought it was her nest. We uncovered the hole and decided it would be neat to try to hatch one. My uncle says it takes an entire year for the turtle to finally hatch. So anyways, I brought the little turtle egg all the way home to Michigan in a protected plastic cup in some dirt from the nest. But I have some good questions needing answering. What temp should the eggs be kept in? How deep in the little glass bowl of dirt should it be kept? Should I add moisture to the egg daily by putting in small ammounts of water? Please answer, and thanks if you do! :)
If I was you I would not take eggs from the wild. You should also have a proper tank set up which will cost about $200 or more. I would put the egg back or at least set up a proper tank.
I would personally get a plastic terrarium with a hood and a heat lamp, keep the terrarium at around 70 to 80 degrees, keep the humidity at around 80 and I would keep the egg in Coconut fiber substrate
The eggs should be incubated at 80-88 degrees Fahrenheit, with around 90 percent humidity, however you do not want to bake the eggs. The eggs should be kept half buried in a mixture of dampened vermiculite and perlite (most garden sores will have it). The eggs will take around 50 days to hatch. The egg or eggs that you have will most likely not hatch now that you have uncovered the nest and moved the eggs. When the eggs are laid the embryo attaches its self to the top of the egg, if the egg is disturbed the embryo will fall and the growth process with stop. So now you will want to mark the top the eggs with a water based marker (a dot will do) just so you can insure they stay the way they are placed. Still try to hatch them, but be aware. Hope I helped, and best of luck. P.S. a cheap incubator can be built using a Styrofoam cooler and a underwater aquarium heater or reptile heating pad. lots of info on youtube and google about those. A heat lamp if not set up properly will bake the eggs.
