Answer:
I assume that finding turtle eggs means they have been removed from the nest by someone or something. In such case, what most 'reptile' people would do
is to gently put them in a container, take them home and artificially incubate. The tops of the eggs should be marked with pencil and special care should
be taken to leave them in the same position at all times. It is easy to make a simple incubator - you will need a large insulated plastic container with
some water at the bottom, couple of bricks and ideally a submersible heater with thermostat and a thermometer. You will put the eggs in a smaller plastic
container half filled with mixture of vermiculate and water, burry the eggs about two thirds into it, cover and place the this on the bricks in the
larger container covering the whole setup. The temperatures should be set at about 82 degrees Fahrenheit and the setup opened once avery few days to let
some fresh air in. The turtles should hatch in a couple months or so. Some people just leave the small container with vermiculate and the eggs
in a war place on a shelf in their closet and are successful in hatching the turtles in such way. The danger to this method, which offers an environment
with basically no control, is to have the teperatures rice too high on a hot summer day and kill the ebryos.
Another thing to do is to gently put the eggs back in the nest (never overturning or tilting them) and cover it with the soil. They would incubate
naturally and most likely successfuly hatch. the important thing is to secure the nest and protect it from preditors. The best way to do this is to
insert in the soil around the nest a few sticks or metal rods and cover the whole setup, sides and top, with wire mesh. This is also a good practice
when finding any nests - as they say better safe than sorry, and this might actually safe quite few turtle lives.
To read more about snapping turtle hatchlings please click here
Thanks for asking!
Stan
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