Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Yolk represents 72-99% of the egg in lizards, This is 50-70% more then needed by the embryo to develop and hatch. Why a mineral diet is favoured to a high protein and fat diet. By reducing the volume of yolk protein you allow faster and a grater number of follicular to develop. = larger clutches faster incubation.

Something we never take into consideration; embryos produce metabolic heat, as they mature they produce higher heat levels.

Incubation duration is not only about temperature, but is also genetically fixed and species specific. This is why we can always provide better then nature for the eggs.

A constant temperature in the upper range causes toxicological damage to the leukocyte stem cells by increasing the level of urea in the blood, This is why your babies are week and short living.

All this is very clear to me, its all the science I need to study my lizards, I may be over enthusiastic but considering that my fellow herpers are sleeping on gas, do I have a choice?

Get on the lue and lets rock this party!!!!
Opps! In Your terms; get involved and we can share new and exiting ideas.

Most of my clutches with the capra average 13.25 eggs with the record being 21 eggs in one clutch. Most start with 16-18 for the first clutch of the season and each subsequent clutch is slightly smaller than the last. I don't know that they could lay too many more than 20-21 eggs unless the eggs were smaller!

Again, I guess seeing would be believing! My dragons don't get particularly high protien/fat diet either. My understanding is that silkworms and nightcrawlers are high in calcium. I found that when I started using more of these as feeders the eggs were better shelled so I went with these for my capra. With the leps the earthworms don't seem to be favored so they do get mostly roaches that have been dusted. However, they have taken well to the silkworms and phoenix worms which do have higher calcium content. I will have to look at the nutrient charts again and see just what I am feeding!

You said you are using roaches and crickets if I am remembering correctly. Is that right? Then you dust with the vitamins and calcium? I use StickyTongueFarms Mineral-I for vitamin/mineral dust and Bone Aid Microstick Calcium Powder. I like these because they stick so well to the feeders. I suppliment this with Solar drops vitamin D3.

So far everyone seems to be doing well. I am interested though in seeing what sort of results you get with your experimentation! It is all very interesting!
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

Hello Marcia

Dang crickets I hate them but my lizards cant do without them, theirs not a single food item that can give you results that crickets give. They seem to have the best ratio, lizards digest them quickly and feed on them with appetite.
I dust them with Rep-cal d3 every day, I use Avitron bird drops once a week, it’s a multi vitamins iv been using for decades, I use to work a 4000 bird aviary, in the old days bird products received far more research then reptile products, this one worked and still do the job for my animals.

Many years ago I read an article about a successful varanids breeder, reporting on multi clutching small varanids, in this article he was interviewed and ask about his feeding, he said crickets exclusively and mice, the interviewer (Vivarium) said you gut load crickets to get such breeding success? The breeder said no way I actually do the opposite, of course the interviewer took him for a fool and never again invited him to his magazine, you see this interviewer had just published an article about the benefits of gut loading crickets.

At the time 1996? Not sure! I knew this breeder knew something I was missing, its only recently that I understood about the crickets and how they perform, I guess it will take this hubby an other decade or so to understand this.

The problem with peoples is they publish anything without testing other ways, this guy published about gut loading without really knowing what he was saying, he never proved his diet with captive in any way, 1000s of peoples read this article and from there on the word is out, mouth to ear from this continent to the next crickets need to be gut loaded. Believe it or not in the same article the breeder said he wasn’t using any UVs and kept multiclutching his monitors, this is when I stopped using these dumb bulbs.

Sins my work with varanids was exclusive to medium and large size species, I never needed to feed crickets, so I didn’t really pay attention to them, now I understand they are a high energy food have an excellent ratio and lizard feed on them with appetite day after day, this is very important.
Rgds

May I present you Frank Rates, a pioneer in lizard husbandry.
The man of the article.
Link

You should read this....

Hatt J.-M., Hung E. and Wanner M. 2003. The influence of diet on the body composition of the house cricket (Acheta domesticus) and consequences for their use in zoo animal nutrition. Der zoologische Garten 73: 238-244.

Cheers

Ingo

If it would just be that easy...

You can´t change the protein content of yolk or the size of the yolk sac by just playing around with the food for the mother.

And metabolic heat of course is taken into account when breeding conditions are discussed.
Nothing new about that.

Take care

Ingo

You can´t change the protein content of yolk or the size of the yolk sac by just playing around with the food for the mother.

But why are you saying this?
Of course you can control yolk size by diet, its easy less fat more minerals. You try it first, then we talk. Why do you think your females gono gave you 3-5 eggs and mine 7-9 eggs?
I don’t need to read your paper about crickets, they are proven as a reliable source by the best breeders in the world, why on earth who’d I read something written by someone I know nothing about? Plus in the wrong living conditions the best diets don’t work, a performance diet can only support a performing host.

Iv seen the difference with my lizards, on a mixed diet of worms they are sluggish don’t move a lot have little appetite and appear bloated, on crickets alone they are alert energetic eat with appetite and make consistent stools, sorry but theirs no turning back on the diet for me now. Again I say try it then we talk.

Look at this, a 35 day capra and an 80 days gono, they are developing normally but abnormally slow, now I know they can be hatched much faster. The next clutch will be hatched by 80 days.

you don’t seem to realise that what I am doing here iv don before, how can you understand my views when you cant understand your faults of husbandry.

Have it ever crossed your mind that gono eggs might need a flood to trigger hatching? I am sure you must understand how the stress of oxygen depravation cause the embryo to hatch when at full term, without such trigger they don’t and toxicological syndrome set inn. I am a douer not just a talker, when we exchange I expect hands on experience not theories written by Joe jack the third. This stuff I don’t need, I am only interested by your personal experience the good but mostly the bad, on this I can rely and learn. I have 1000s of papers written by the worlds top herpetologists in my closet, most iv never read.

Rgds

>>Iv seen the difference with my lizards, on a mixed diet of worms they are sluggish don’t move a lot have little appetite and appear bloated, on crickets alone they are alert energetic eat with appetite and make consistent stools, sorry but theirs no turning back on the diet for me now. Again I say try it then we talk.>>

I'm not gonna say you are wrong or that I am right, I am just gonna say that I feed my animals a mixed diet. I think it works for my animals!

I just posted on another forum concerning my opinion on these being sluggish animals, I don't think they are! I think that when we, their keepers are present, they hide, just as they would try to blend in in the wild. When I am in my reptile room performing maintenance on the insects and the babies tanks I hear a great amount of rustling and movement in the adults vivs every morning. If I turn quickly enough I see flashes of the animals running across the mesh fronts or jumping from vine to mesh side. Anything but inactive.

My armata are never in the same place from one inspection to the next and they are fed on superworms, nightcrawlers, dew worms, and roaches. I have just introduced silk worms today and will see if they are gone when I get home tonight. I know they are eating well, none are bloated or fat and I have to change out the water every day as it is full of fresh feces daily.

My capra are the same, moving from one place to another. The lepidogaster are usually hiding under ferns or the leaves of the vines. They eat mealworms, dew worms, roaches, silk worms and occasionally phoenix worms. Again, anything but inactive. When I am not messing with the viv or placing feeders I hear them rustling around in the leaves or tearing across the mesh. I find the feces on the ground and in the water, enough to show me that all are processing very well.

My babies have never tasted a cricket. They were started on mini-mealworms and then I added tiny regular mealworms, small silkworms, tiny roaches, and phoenix worms. There are 11 babies in the tank and every morning I remove 11 little poops! Some from the paper towel substrate and some with the water change. Yes, some days I count! I am amazed that they can mess daily!

So, no crickets, plenty of poo from all! Also plenty of activity, nice colors and no bloating, large clutch sizes, vigorous hatchlings, why should I think that I need to improve on this? I'm not saying things can't be improved, just that I never felt that there was a problem!

Just my opinion however and I know there is bound to be room for improvement/enhancement!
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

My lizards cages are in the mid 80s daytime, when the basking shuts they lower to about 74f, I don’t remember but I think this is a little wormer then yours? I know for sure that my basking are more hot then yours. The reason food vary so much from one keeper to the other is all about metabolism, its possible that in my cages my lizard digestion is faster then in your cages, a faster metabolism will brake down the food much faster and in the same time create gas (why the bloating) from here on I have the choice to reduce my temps (witch I don’t want) or to adjust my diet (in this sense crickets work)

Of course you have great success and your animals are doing excellent, this was never an issue, my question to you is, if I ever shorten my dragons incubation by halve 60-70 days range, will you be tempted to try?

My opinion is not personal, I just think that your incubation is on the edge of diapauses, this means it’s at the lowest possible time, any lower and the eggs stop development.
The eggs iv just opened really shows this to be true, if you think about it, other eggs have been incubated at higher temps and they did hatch faster, the problem was viability, and this can be attributed to other factors but temps.

rgds

... I have 1000s of papers written by the worlds top herpetologists in my closet, most iv never read.
....

I still think, you should.
Understanding your way of thinking, I still do not like your way of communicating.
If you do your research as "open minded" as you discuss.....well, thats not what will lead to scientific success.
Science is different.....and you won´t change that truth

You may still put it in your closet, but I still feel I should carefully mention that there are some data out there, which do stem from careful research and may tell us a lot....

Just a few examples (there is a lot more out there..)taken from the discussed context which are in fact worth reading:

Ji, X. , Qiu, QB and Diong, CH (2002)Influence of incubation temperature on hatching success, energy expenditure for embryonic development, and size and morphology of hatchlings in the oriental garden lizard, Calotes versicolor (Agamidae)J. Exp. Zool.292(7); 649-659

Thompson, MB., Speake, BK., Russell, KJ. and McCartney, RJ (2001)Nutrient Uptake by Embryos of the Australian Viviparous Lizard Eulamprus tympanum.Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, 74; 560–567

Blackburn, DG. (1994)Standardized Criteria for the Recognition of Embryonic Nutritional Patterns in Squamate Reptiles. Copeia, 4 ; 925-935

Thompson, MB and Speake, BK.(2003)Energy and nutrient utilisation by embryonic reptiles. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology 133; 529-538

Romano, M., Rosanova, P., Anteo, C. and Limatola, E. (2004) Vertebrate yolk proteins: A review. Molecular Reproduction and Development. 69(1);109 - 116

Packard MJ, Packard GC, Miller JD, Jones ME and Gutzke WH (1985)
Calcium mobilization, water balance, and growth in embryos of the agamid lizard Amphibolurus barbatus.
J Exp Zool. 235(3):349-57.

Du,WG., Shou, L. and Liu, J.K. (2003)The effect of incubation temperature on egg survival, hatchling traits and embryonic use of energy in the blue-tailed skink, Eumeces elegans. Animal biology. 53(1), 27-36

Ji, X., Du, WG., and Xu, WG. (1999) Experimental manipulation of egg size and hatchling size in the cobra Naja naja atra (Elapidae)Netherlands Journal of Zoology 49(3); 167-175

Last not least and of special interest for you (even though birds are not reptiles):

Finkler MS., Van Orman JB., Sotherland, PR. (1998)Experimental manipulation of egg quality in chickens: influence of albumen and yolk on the size and body composition of near-term embryos in a precocial bird.Journal of Comparative Physiology 168(1):17-24

Ci@o

Ingo

This really saddens me my friend, it was with you I wanted to share most.
You think I discard science, how silly!! I live by it, only I have limited time and wish to follow my own path. You once asked me if there was something I didn’t have, I have to answer that I don’t have time to waste with mind-bending games with you on these forums, its obvious you want no part of me, I respect this and wish you well.
rgds

Hm.....I am not sure, who is" playing mind bending games".
I am a scientist by training and a herpetoculturist by passion.
Thats what drives me and I am always willing to exchange experiences and opinions.
But I do think that in such open forums everyone should be very cautious in giving "ultimate" advices.
Too many newbies around...

Thats my 2 cts

Ingo