Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a male and female bearded dragon and I am having problems with incubating the eggs. The male dragon I have had for 2 years and the female I have had for just over a year. She has laid 3 clutches since I have had her. The first clutch she laid 20 eggs, the second 18 and just last week she laid 19. I have an incubator which from my research on the net holds a temperature of 83F and I try to keep the humidity around 74%. After she lays, I place the eggs in a plastic container half filled with damp vermiculite of which I place in the incubator. Out of the last two clutches I had one egg to sucessfully hatch. All the other eggs shells seem to become transparent and wither. I have read that this could happen if there is a problem with the egg or it is not fertile. Is this correct or am I doing something wrong? Is the humidity too high? I would really appreciate someone that has raised dragons to whom I can talk with about this.

sounds like you are doing things the right way. sounds to me like the eggs may not be fertile. make sure your temps stay the same at all times. if the temp in the room fluctuates at all then your incubator temp may too. good luck
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Beach Beardies

2.4. bearded dragons
1.0. Turquoise x Sunburst Veiled Chameleon
1.1. Sugar Gliders
0.2. Felines *queen athena and missy*

Thank you for the reply...have a couple of questions. In reading on this forum a majority of the eggs she laid had transparent areas. Is this normal? If not then when she starts showing egg development should I increase the calcium? From reading here on the site it sounds like the shells are not forming correctly.

i would say for sure up the calcium sounds like the shells arent developed right,
what did you mean buy temps should be at, is this what temp your hopeing for or is this what they ar at?

Hi, having had loads of clutches hatch myself over the years hopefully i can help. If when the eggs are layed they look like they havent been shelled properly, if fertile this will mean that the female hasnt had enough calcium in her diet to produce the shells on the eggs. This can be dangerouse for your female too and i would suggest giving her a little more calcium than she normally has for a week or two to make sure she is healthy. Also up her food intake and try and see if she will take a pinkie once a week as these are high in calcium and fat. If the eggs arent fertile to start with then you have no chance from the off. You can place then in the incubator but they will quickly start to yellow and mould and shrivel up. Sounds like you are doing everything that you should be though so all i would suggest is that when you know your female is gravid make sure you up the amount of calcium she gets so as to give your eggs the best chance and also to keep your dragon safe. Hope This helps.

Thank you for the advice...the more I think about it the more I tend to lean towards not enough calcium in her diet. Will definately do the pinkies also

Sorry...I mean that the tempature in the incubator is a steady 83F.....I keep the humidity at or around 74%

I am thinking that the problem is poor egg shell development. Will definately increase the calcium for now and when I see the development of eggs.