We got our first clutch of eggs last night

After establishing our base in Kampong Mangkok for more than 11 days, we finally procured our first clutch of river terrapin eggs for incubation.

At 12 midnight our neighbour Arbi called “Prof, Prof, ada telur!” Pelf and I were so excited. The 11-night drought had finally ended. Mohd Farid Azihan led us to his house and brought out the 20 precious eggs wrapped in a sarong. His elder brother Yatim had spotted the gravid female at 8.30 pm and it finally laid at 11.30 pm. We carefully transferred the eggs to our pail lined with moist sand and sped back “home.” We promised that we will return the next day to pay for the eggs (RM5 each) and measure the terrapin Yatim had kept in a tank. He was certain she had more eggs and would try to let her lay them all before releasing her back to the river.

It was the first time we were handling the eggs ourselves (in previous years we had engaged Lina to help us buy and incubate the eggs) and this gave us the opportunity to weigh and measure each egg before carefully putting them into the styrofoam box for incubation. We have decided to incubate the first few clutches in styrofoam boxes (to produce males) and the majority in sand-nests in the ground. These will be the “hot” nests that will produce female terrapins.

As expected, we had ready help from two neighbours, Eddie and Amin. The pictures below are self-explanatory.