Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well I just got another bunch of eggs from my 2 girls or maybe just one of them. I am not sure as I just found them on the morning cage cleaning. There are 6 of them. I was wondering if anyone could give me any info on incubation of them as the info I used last time didn't work as none of them hatched. They seem fertile and there is a boy in with the 2 girls so I have no reason to think they wouldn't be.

Mriswith

If you find them laying in the cage, the chances of them hatching are very very low. Fertile has nothing to do with it.

Monitors are nesters, very much like birds. Without a nest they hold their eggs until they spoil(start to die) Then drop them hopelessly in the cage. Individual monitors may wait until all eggs are dead them drop them. Or some will drop them as soon as one egg dies inside them. Its possible to have an individual drop eggs that all hatch. You could also win the lottery.

Also some individuals hold the eggs until they die.

Of course give them a chance to hatch, incubate them. But don't expect much. Good luck and Cheers

They were not just laying in the cage .I found them kinda buired in one of the hollow logs on the bottom of the cage and they were not in there yesterday so I am guessing one of the girls layed them last night.

In hatching them, but I can only offer my experience. To be kinda buried is not what varanids do. If allowed they are SO buried you cannot find them. Ask RSG about finding eggs. hahahahahahaha those were some fun days.

To carry it even further. The females have a magical sense of knowledge when it comes to knowing if the right temps and humidity is available. They do not have to dig to find out, they know it from the surface.

A common nesting senerio for a female monitors is. To begin building a nest, copulate. Yes, building the nest first. Then work on the nest a little here, a little there. In between burying only the entrance. Then right before laying reopen the burrows and "go down". They stay down for anywhere from 3hours(larger monitors) to overnight, to several days. They come up and hide all entrances, even burrows that were not the nesting burrow. This frantic hiding or protection of the nest is a give away that a complete nesting has taken place. A complete nesting is, all good eggs in one chamber, they are full and white. Normally these eggs hatch with ease in a wide variety of temps, humidities and substrates. They are not hard to hatch at all.

Eggs that vary from that, partially laid in a nest, a shallow nest, on the ground, etc. Normally result in being hard to hatch, low hatch rate, die at the least little thing. Heck, I have had eggs vary forty degrees F (in one day)and still hatch.

Yet others seem to have problems even if the temps vary a degree or a couple humidity points.

There is only a simple point here, if your really interested in hatching the eggs, you may consider better nesting. I cannot tell you how, as I have no idea of what kind of monitor your talking about.

Lastly, your past results are a perfect discription of poor nesting. Good looking eggs that fail to hatch.

If I get poor nesting, I have the very same results. Also consider, even if you know the exact nesting a female perfers, you still have to have it in the right condition at the right time. So to consistantly recieve eggs that hatch is about proper nest maintenance. You can fail at any time. Cheers

Thanks frank. I have 3 blue spot timors. I can put just about anything in the enclousure but I have zero idea what kinda nesting material a female timor would look for or use. I am gonna try and hatch the eggs I have but I would like to know for future use what they might use or like. I know geographicly where they come from and all but not really found much info on there prefered nestign materials. There enclousure is 8 feet tall 6 feet wide and 4 feet deep. With temps today ranging from 95 to 70 and humidity about 75% Basking spots lets see the temp gun says 142,134 and 133 (several differant spots). They have dirt and leaf little over about 3/4 of the bottom about 3 feet deep in some area and a bit less then a foot in others. A water area over the rest. There are a few broadleaf plants in there and a couple of logs half buried in the substrate (where I found the eggs today). Lotsa branches and other climbing stuff for them aswell. If you could give me any ideas about timors I would sure like to give the females what they need so as to avoid problems in the future. Hatching the eggs would be a nice perk but I would definatly like to keep my charges healthy and happy.

Mriswith

Again your set up sounds nice, no wonder your getting eggs. If you feed them they will throw eggs at you for sometime.

Try this, mix sand with sifted sphagnum moss, 50/50. use it in an open area on the bottom of the cage. at least a foot deep, leaflitter over it and place a spot lite that keeps the surface around 90F. You can also put a small hollow limb going into the mix. See how that works for your monitors. The point is, the area they lay in, must be secure Deep, and the right temp(mid to low eighties) and of course humid but not wet. Monitors normally lay under sun exposed areas. Cheers and good luck.

Thank you very much I will try that tonight. I really hope they like it I think they are fairly secure and pretty "happy" but anythin that will help I am up for. ??? would an under tank heater in that area help or will the spot do the trick?

Mriswith

Under tank heaters in all forms are the devil. hahahahahahahaha. In my humble opinion, monitors sense temps, what they seem to be looking for is an areas of temps, a mass. Not a spot. Heat strips/pads etc, are X temp at the pad, then quickly drop every 1/2 inch. There is no mass temp, there are only very local temps.

My feeling is, they are looking for a certain size area, I have no handle on this, other then its large. My feeling a large area is required to keep the eggs steady over a long period of time. This areas have sun or heat exposure because they normally go through several seasons and at times overwinter. These areas must also drain, that is, water or moisture cannot sit still(have no place to go. This fact is one reason to use deeper then needed substrate. So excess moisture drains below the depth needed. Cheers and good luck, oh take pics of baby bluespots hatching.

ok thanks for the input. I will just use a couple few low wattage bulbs and see what I can get done. I am thinking maybe 1/3 of the total floor area covered with the mix you sugrested and it being the 1/3 furthest from the water area. As for drainage it shouldn't be an issue as the is basicly under substrate dranage across the whole bottom that drains into the filter. ( btw YUCK on cleaning the fliter daily) but as I said they seem to like it and still haven't managed to catch all the fish and shrimp in the area thou 2 of them work at it on a daily basis keep them busy and outta trouble *laugh*.