Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all! I had a few questions regarding egg laying and hatching. I am a first time breeder and I want to make sure I do it right. I have a female that is gravid and wanted to know if I'm to put her in her egg laying bin while gravid before she starts the digging behavior or after the digging behavior? Once she lays the eggs, what's the safest way to go about digging up the eggs and is sand and soil mixture the best way to go for egg laying? Once the eggs are ready to be put in the incubator, does the vermiculite need to be wet before or after the eggs are placed in it and what's the best way to moisten the vermiculite? i know it's imperitive to make sure the vermiculite stays moistened while in incubation so what's the best way to do that without sogging the eggs? I greatly appreciate your time and advice and hope to be as successful as those who have successfully hatched beardies.

Put her in a bin with a 40 lbs. of moistened topsoil once she starts digging. She may dig several days before actually laying, so be sure to put a heat source over the laying bin. The big rubbermaid containers work well. The eggs are pretty tough little things, just dig them up with your fingers. The eggs are safe to be rolled for up to 12 hours after laying. If you wait any longer than that to dig them up, be very careful not to roll them or you may kill the egg. I use perlite as an incubation medium. Mix the perlite with enough water that it sticks together and when squeezed...but no so wet that water drips out. I use sandwich containers with three or four small holes drilled in the lid for the egg container. Make sure your incubator and egg container are warmed up and ready to go. If the incubator does not have a place to add water for humidity, then place a bowl of water in the incubator. Incubate between 81*F and 84*F. You may need to add a TINY bit of water back in the egg container about a month or 6 weeks into incubation. Generally, the less you mess with the eggs during incubation, the better. Resist the urge to open the incubator!

Jamie

Thanks a lot, your information was very helpful and I hope to see if it works!

see you in 80 days! lol

Well I do things a little different but many ways work. My nest boxes are 100% sand. I moisten the sand and pack it down, then I dig a starter hole. The sand should ideally be in the low 80's. When the female starts digging I put her in the nest box. I used to use a soil sand mixture but got tired of my females looking dirty until their next shed.

I don't know about the eggs being OK to turn in the first 24 hours so I don't take any chances and never turn them. My females generally lay in the farthest corner of the nest box so I know where to look.

I use vermiculite. I moisten it so that if I squeeze it real hard I can just get a tiny bit of water to come out. Then I weigh each container and mark it's weight on the lid. I place them in the incubator to warm up till the eggs arrive. Before placing the eggs in I reweigh the container and replace any lost water.

Then I put the eggs into indents I made with a finger so they are about 1/2 buried. Again I weigh each container and mark it's weight on the lid. Every 2 weeks I weigh each container and replace the water lost. I use a dropper to add the water to the vermiculite and not onto the eggs.

The containers should only have a few small holes depending on how big the container is. I incubate at 83-85. Usually I see the first babies about day 61.

Excellent! I have vermiculite so that is very helpful and as far as weighing to make up for any water loss is a very excellent idea. So as far as the soil goes, what's the downfall of using nothing but top soil and no sand? I wasn't gonna take the chance of turning the eggs anyway. Has the theory of temperature depicting sex been just that, a theory, or has it proven to be somewhat true?

The advantage of sand is it drains well and doesn't get muddy. Sand will also keep your dragons from getting permanently dirty if you're sensitive about that. The bad thing about sand is that the nests collapse easier than soil or a sand soil mixture. Then you and the dragon have to start all over if that happens.

I think 100% soil would work (but I've never used it) but I'd be concerned that it may clump and be hard for the dragons to dig in. You want the nest box to be solid enough that the dragon can dig a tunnel without collapse but loose enough that the digging is not difficult. 100% sand is easy for a dragon to dig in, no matter how tightly packed.