Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I saw that my female veiled was displaying all the signs of carrying eggs about a week ago. I did not breed her, but was planning to at the end of the month. So these eggs are unfertile. I am currently at a vet school so they took some free x-rays and confirmed she had eggs. Anyway, I put her in an egg laying chamber yesterday and from the time she started digging untill the time she covered up the eggs was about 7 hours. Additionally, I dug up the eggs today and they are semi soft.

Is that time period normal for laying eggs? And are the eggs on the softer side b/c they are not fertile, or b/c she desposited them early, or b/c of Calcium supp? I will post pictures of her process soon.

Thanks,
Jeff

I wouldn't worry. Infertile eggs are almost always dingy white or yellow. And they will be squishy. Fertile eggs are hard & white. Kinda like an itty bitty hen egg.
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www.cricketscritters.com

cricketscritters said..."Fertile eggs are hard & white. Kinda like an itty bitty hen egg"...most species of chameleon eggs are leathery not brittle like a hen egg. Just try to cut into one and you will see that they are leathery. They are definitely white though.

Yesterday my panther layed 31 eggs however they were very small and very soft/rubbery. My Nosey Be also layed recently and her eggs were larger and had a gritty texture to them and appeared much more "calcified" I can tell you the differences between the two that may have lead to poor vs adequate calcification. The ambilobe is very reclusive and she is known as the cham you never see. She would NOT eat her prey unless nobody was around which usually meant waiting untill the early morning hours after most of the supplement was off her prey from the day before.The Nosy eats everything and anything as soon as it is placed in front of her. She got well supplemented food. Ambilobe layed earlier,only about 25 days after mating,she had a big clutch(31)total.Nosy had clutch size of about 17 each. Nosy took MUCH longer to lay and took 4 days to finally lay! Yes,4 days of digging and driving me crazy with anxiety. I know this sounds abnormal but she has had 2 clutches this way and seems to be her "style" she has always sprang back beautifully so I wouldnt worry about 7 hours. The ambilobe took a few hours,put her chamber in there and she got to work immediately. Also,I did administer calcium gluconate liquid to the nosy at the end stages which I contributed to her taking so long to lay thinking her stress level was higher due to me pulling her out of her safety zone to administer it.I did not give it to my very shy reclusive ambilobe thinking that would really stress her out but she proved to be a champ at knowing what to do when it came to laying time and I wonder if it would have been worth it to ensure better calcification. I think that if your powder supplement and gutload,and prey variety are adeguate,the gluconate is not necessary but as I mentioned I dont think her prey was well powdered. The lack of powdered supplementing I plan to deal with next clutch.Thankfully she is springing back beautifully and I have removed some of the dense foliage so that I can better keep an eye on her and she can acclimate more to seeing humans. I tell you after laying those eggs she could care less who was around because she was one hungry lady. I cannot figure out why her eggs look so small and if this means they are infertile(time will tell) They are white but like i said dont have any texture to them at all. I will be watching to see if anyone responds to your posts and anyone wishing to comment on my very long rant here please do so! Thanks!!