A few months after losing my beloved Tazzie, I took in 2 abandoned beardies. Caring for them was so painful that I was going to get them new homes, but after awhile, it became clear that, painful memories or not, I loved them too much to give away.
I thought they were both females at first, but then one of them (Patch) got much bigger than the other, developed a full, dark black beard, started violent head bobbing and became aggressive with the other beardie. I seperated them and thought Patch was a male.
A few days ago, Patch started digging frantically all day and acting kind of nervous. Last night, I found one perfect little egg laying on top of "his" rabbit pellets. I could see or feel no eggs in Patch's belly and found none in the pellets, so I assumed it was just one infertile egg. This morning, when I turned the UV lights on, Patch started the frantic digging again. I don't have vermiculite, so I put a combination of damp peat moss and forest bedding in a big bin and put Patch in the bin. She started digging almost right away, but she just digs to the bottom of the bin and tries to dig through the plastic. She's been at it for hours.
What should I do? Should I add more dirt (there's 6 to 8 inches in there now)? Try warm soaks? Call a vet? Give her time? I don't know what to do and I am still terrified of vets after what happened, but I don't want anything to happen to Patch either. Any ideas?
She's about 1 1/2 years old, 474 grams, eats great and appears perfectly healthy. She's been alone for months now, so the eggs are probably all infertile (unless the other "female" is actually a male and they mated without me seeing).
Any ideas are greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Lisa
