Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Not much longer now. She's been posturing like this for the last few days. Just hope she uses her nesting box & not her greens bowl as she did once before... She laid her eggs in with the "salad" & buried it all.
D&L

Hey!! Man, shes gonna pop any minute! I got my fingers crossed!

Nat

Not as much as she's got her EYES crossed right now!! Poor gal...

Wow looking good! Good luck with those eggs and take care of your little girl! I hope to see thsoe babys in the classifieds one day...haha jk

Dude. Ditch the egg box.... then again keep it. They suck. All my lizards will never lay in any egg box. Fill the dang cage full of 1-2ft of dirt and moisten one side. This will give your uromastyx a choice to where to lay the eggs. More dirt the better gradient. Hot and cool, moist and dry.

You probably dont know what the correct laying conditions are. I bet nobody does. I know i dont. So just let her pick! She will be less stressed and you will be happier. Eggs will last longer down there also. The only part that sucks is digging up the eggs. So be careful during that part. Dont be lazy and rely on the nesting box.

Stick the nesting box in there also and you will see which one she picks.

Cheers and good luck,
Sean

Dude. Thanks for your opinion. Nesting boxes work well for us & for many others. Get off your soap box.

.

He's just looking out for the well being of your animal. He's right, a uromastyx would much rather dig a real nest where she wants it. Usually they lay in an egg box because there is no other place that is anywhere near suitable (last-ditch effort). There's also a risk of egg-binding when using a nest-box, because some reptiles will fail to lay eggs if the conditions aren't close enough and they will be retained. Of course, this is not always the case and it varies from species to species, and if you know anything about your reptiles (I assume you do) you will know if this is happening. Nest-boxes are for humans, not reptiles. Reptiles know the difference. It's not like you're tricking them into thinking a plastic box is their burrow. If they didn't construct it themselves, it's nothing more than a dark area they can hide that may or may not satisfy their needs.

Now a lot of people say that nest-boxes are for lazy keepers. I actually think it's the opposite. It's for people who either over-think their setups, or made a mistake when they purchased/built a cage that doesn't hold much substrate (I know I've made that mistake a few times ). The fact is, if you have an enclosure that can hold a foot or two of dirt, all you need to do is add the dirt and water it every now and then. If they dirt is good (most desert reptiles like dirt with very low or no amounts of organic material) the uros will dig burrows and lay eggs all on their own. All the human has to do is check on them every now and then to make sure the temps are good, add food, maybe dump some water into the dirt. The reptiles are always going to know more about what they do than we will, so it's best to let them do what they want to do. With a nest-box you're simply trying to guess what temperature and humidity level they want their nest to be. If you guess wrong, the reptile will probably either be reluctant to lay, or she will retain the eggs.

But if you don't have an enclosure that will hold that much dirt, then you really don't have any other choice. Just keep an eye on her and make sure she lays.

There's not soapbox involved. Next time someone offers you advice you should either take it, or don't. No reason to be rude to someone that's trying to help you.

I disagree, if using a nest box was not as useful as you make them out to be then why are they so widely used? I am by no means the epitome of Uro breeding but have always used nest boxes when my lizards are breeding, but have also read about people just using copious amounts of dirt. I personally don't like this method because when adding a large amount of moist dirt, it will without a doubt raise the RH.
Another thing with using dirt in most enclosures is that unless you use a LOT of dirt, the gradients probably wont very much from a nest box. My biggest problem with this method would be the maintenance involved in keeping the inclosures and my house clean.
All in all, I think it will come down to the owners preferences; may be some of the more experienced people will give their opinions. Just my 2 cents!

-Nathanael

Look around. Most reptile husbandry today is designed to make it easier on the keeper. I think it's funny thought that it always comes at a cost. Stacking enclosures are super-expensive. I built some stacking enclosures a couple years ago (kind of hate them now though. I don't really use them much anymore though). It cost me about $150 to build three 4'x2'x2' enclosures that look beautiful (unfortunately, they aren't functional). If I had tried to buy those enclosures, I would have been broke! I setup my RT breeding trio in a beautiful large rubbermaid stock tank (I think it's the 150 gal.) with a foot of dirt, heatlamps, etc. etc. and that cost me under $100. It's not dirty, but it sure weighs a ton. not nearly as much as a piano or a fully-loaded couch. It's easy to fit it in the house, even though I share the house with three other people. I like keeping it in the basement (up on blocks to keep it off the floor). The basement is cooler and more humid so it's easier to keep a good temperature gradient and it's easier to keep the humidity above zero. I still have to dump a gallon of water in once or twice a week to keep the soil from turning into pavement.

That's another point. In all of my enclosures I have yet to have any problems with relative humidity. maybe the first day you put the soil in, or for an hour after you dump water into it, but the heat lamps hit it and there's nothing I can do to keep it humid in there aside from dumping more water in and over-saturating the soil. This is in enclosures with no ventilation other than what naturally occurs due to imperfections in construction.

Anyways, look at pictures on the deer fern farms website. Beautiful animals and I totally respect what they are doing, but I think it's obvious why they use nest boxes, and I think it's the same reason most other people still do.

Good post, Ryan. Agreed. BTW, we've never been able to find stackables to be practical, either. As a consequence, we've enclosures spread out thru the house but, we can manage them better that way.
Mostly, it's a matter of how many animals does one keep. We keep alot. If we had just a couple Uros, I'd choose the big tubs & provide deep substrate. As it is, we have to be practical.
Obviously, Lindsay, Doug & other breeders opt for nesting boxes out of practical & logistical reasons & have been quite successful.
I think you did a good job of stepping in & "cushioning the debate" !
Dan.

Why can't there ever just be a good healthy exchange of information without people getting defensive about their husbandry. I know that whenever I personally post information about changing husbandry, it's not because I have something against the person, or I want to feel bigger than them. It's just that they want suggestions on how to improve husbandry, and that's what I give them.

But anyways, yes, practicality does come into play. That's actually why I've stopped expanding my collection. I stopped adding animals to the collection because I'd rather focus on providing the best care possible for the reptiles that I keep, as opposed to digging myself deeper by getting more critters (especially more of different species). I actually made a post in the tortoise forum once discussing the fact that if I had gone through with every reptilian purchase I've ever contemplated, I would have hundreds of them. I'm happy to be at 9 right now. I think that's a good number for me, at least right now. I've got enough going on between college, my part-time jobs, trying to maintain a career as a professional drummer/teacher of percussion. I've got enough going on!

The bottom line is, you do what you can. I just hate it when people can do more for their pets and they choose not to. Obviously there is sometimes not much choice in the matter though.

Rude? I don't think so. Rude is when the latest self appointed experts respond to a simple post by getting on their soap boxes & lecturing their latest theories.
We don't house our reptiles in a warehouse but within our home. As a consequence, it's not practical or even possible to provide enclosures that permit "1-2'" of substrate. We have endeavored to construct our cages that offer the best husbandry for the animals balanced with blending in with home decor.
Offering Uros deep substrate may be a good attempt at reproducing natural conditions, however, maintaining any animal in captivity is always a compromise between keeper needs & kept needs.
I appreciate advice, don't get me wrong. That's a large part of any forum. But advice, especially among folks who don't know each other, should be carefully worded. It can quickly become offending.
Best regards,
Dan.