Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My female beardie has been out and about for about a week now and has eaten a few times since brumating almost 5 months. My first question is, what is a good way to get here ready to mate and lay eggs, any dietary or enviornmental factor ideas are needed. Second, Which is the prefered way to incubate the eggs, are people making their own setups or r they buying incubators and which work the best for beardies. Third, does the male need to be conditioned in any way, he already seems ready if u know what i mean! And lastly, i have raised 2 beardies from youngsters, and know the mass amounts of food they can consume in a short amount of time, what r u feeding the babies, and how many r u feeding per cluth per week avg? Thanks for helping me figure this all out, any links or advise is gratefully thankful.

If she's just coming out of brumation, I'd feed her heavy for a little while first. Let her put on some weight and up her calcium intake, she'll need it to produce eggs. If you only have the one female I'd go out and get a hovabator. Building your own incubator won't save you any money and is usually for larger operations so you can house many clutches at the same time. The male doesn't really need anything special, make sure that he is healthy because some will go off there feed while breeding. I'm trying the cricket free thing this season, so far it's working well. If you feed live, plan on tons of baby crickets, each baby can eat up to 100 per day (I never really counted each one but think this is a good estimate)

Sean
Heart Mountain Herps

Hey if you could tell me more about the cricket free diet i'd be all ears, i hate those smelly things. and TY

>>Hey if you could tell me more about the cricket free diet i'd be all ears, i hate those smelly things. and TY

The info below is taken directly from my site... hope it helps with the crix free questions.....

CRICKET FREE FEEDING

Hatchlings >>>> 4 months

Salad mix consisting of Endive, Escarole, Mustard greens and squash lightly dusted daily with calcium with D3. Moistened Rep cal pellets are dropped on top of the salad. We offer this dish of food twice daily…. 1 hour after the lights come on in the morning and again at around 2 pm. Dishes are removed 1 hour before lights are turned off for the night. For added protein we offer very small freshly shed super worms or silk worms every 3 – 4 days. We also dust the salad once a week with a vitamin supplement...UPDATE: We now use the T Rex super foods supplements daily instead of separate calcium and vitamins.

4 months >>>> Adult

We offer the same salad as above with moistened Rep cal pellets on top. We also provide a dish of dry pellets in the cage at all times. For added protein we offer 4 super worms or silk worms every 3 - 4 days, we always dust the super worms with calcium with D3 before feeding. We also use a vitamin supplement once weekly on top of their salad greens. UPDATE: We now use the T Rex super foods supplements daily instead of separate calcium and vitamins.

Try mixing things up a little and add other various vegetables to your salad mix. The foods listed above are our basic salad mix, we always offer something “extra” in the daily salads.
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Lisa
Cricket free babies!
LIVE hatchling web cam 8 - 8 EST
www.beginnersbasics.com

This sounds like a great alternative to those smelly things, so are you also raising your own silkworms? I have not really been too lucky with keeping a good supply of them. ty again

>>This sounds like a great alternative to those smelly things, so are you also raising your own silkworms? I have not really been too lucky with keeping a good supply of them. ty again

Yes I am. Sometimes it goes well, other times I find myself ordering more silk worm eggs to hatch out lol. I had some people give me some great "tips" on raising them and breeding them. If your interested, drop me a line via email and I will email it to you. It is in a Word Doc
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Lisa
Cricket free babies!
LIVE hatchling web cam 8 - 8 EST
www.beginnersbasics.com

Like heartmountain wrote, increase the feeding and also the calcium intake before you breed her. I also took a fecal sample of both the female and the male so I knew that they were free of parasites before I bred them.

I am not sure about the “cricketfree” diet for babies though… It hasn’t been enough research on that part – in my opinion. I offer my babies crickets, some pellets and also vegetables from the start.

I fed my babies 3 times a day – as much as they want to eat in 10 minuets. If you feed babies to little they tend to nib at each other and you get missing toes and tails.

I made my own incubator – and it is very easy and doesn’t cost nearly as much as a hovabator. If you follow this link below you can see how I made mine. It worked fine, and now I have 8 eggs in it again.

This page is also great: http://biology.lsa.umich.edu/research/labs/ktosney/file/BDeggs.html

/Gunilla

Babies

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Thanks alot! You guys are all great, I'm going to take this information i have gotten and put it to good use. Anyone else have suggestions or ideas lemme know ok. Thanks Again everyone