The Zulu Project

Happy Mandela Day!!! If you want to know the organization that is our motivation for The Zulu Project, please visit their page!

https://www.thebabyhouse.co.za/

We are proud to call them family and they could always use the help. Feel free, to donate through their page, even if you are not able to house a tortoise!

We are so happy to say that all 4 babies have found their forever homes and we saved the best for last! Our good friends adopted one of our babies! Congratulations Nate & Family! 😍

There are still 10 eggs in the incubator so stay tuned for updates! 🐢

Who doesn’t love a morning hot tub party?!🤣

Tortoises mostly hydrate through their skin and shell by soaking. They rarely actually drink water. The warm water also stimulates motility for bowel movements so we change water often because of 💩 water! For hatchlings, warm daily soaks are especially important due to their small size they can become dehydrated quickly!

We are so beyond excited to announce the arrival of our babies this week! 😍 Get ready for all the cuteness!!

I grew up in the country and around farms and loved every minute of it. There was no shortage of baby animals to snuggle. As a child, we specifically had two litters of puppies from our dog and my dad got baby ducks for us to raise! What a great experience for a child! Not only the work that went into caring for them but also to see it all happening first hand. I still have vivid memories of the ducks running towards our school bus when we got home quaking like crazy to greet us! Watching these tortoises hatch has been nothing short of a amazing!

The dream of mine to one day have baby tortoises felt just as that, a dream. Even though we had two that could mate and potentially have babies it seemed so far away against all odds. Tortoises don’t sexually mature typically until approximately 8 years old. Nolwazi, the Mama, is not quite 4…..So to say we weren’t expecting eggs is an understatement. That cold night on February 1st when we were getting the kids ready for bed we soon would be shocked out of our tree! As I was cleaning the water and tidying their enclosure I came across these white objects. I immediately made an assumption and said: “Ugh, you guys (kids) can’t put rocks in with the tortoises!” Wait a moment, there are……..ALEX!!!!! As I yell for my husband with urgency, he always comes running to my rescue prepared for whatever shenanigans seem to arise in our home! His eyes lit up! I’m in panic. I am a woman who likes plans, preparation, organization, time to process. Classic adoption mom here 🙋🏻‍♀️!!! I drove quickly to my brothers house to gather an incubator I knew he had from a duck egg the previous year.

The next think you know we are incubating 5 Hermanns Tortoise eggs! A month later 7 more arrived. Ok we need a bigger incubator! A month after that another clutch arrived with 4 more……😳 Ok, we are in over our heads. Luckily Alex and I do perseverance under pressure well, it’s our specialty!

Please welcome our first three hatchlings!!!❤️🐢