Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well its been one full week and I have 33 bosc eggs, that look great so far. No casualties of any kind. All are white round and turgid. So this will be the last post on them for a while as they aren't going to hatch till mid September, damn that 160 day incubation

But on a side note my female has put a huge amount of wait back on, and under FR's advice I have changed her nesting site a bit and given her a good two feet mound of sand/vermiculite/and coconut fiber mix to nest in. She has been working on her new chamber all day and night.

I have no idea how many more eggs she will lay in the next few weeks but I am really going to enjoy finding out.

Best of luck to the rest of you out there that are also finding themselves breeding their monitors. Keep it up maybe in five years we might have a whole new market for cb babies, besides the ackies and the argus.

What are you saying(thinking)? She should not cycle again for at least a month(two weeks on). Once she cycles, she has to breed again. Then will nest and lay after that. The exact time period depends on your support and her condition.

She will not dig a nesting chamber until she is ready to lay. The hole she is digging now is simply her burrow(unless she still has some remaining eggs in her). They do live in networks of burrows, not just one. They normally have many, and they use them for different reasons and different seasons(in nature)

Also, it is too soon to tell about the eggs, you will know soon enough. Also, do not depend on some certain time period, because that simply does not always work. It fact, it rarely works. These are reptiles and do not have a set rate of development, based on a set metabolism. Their rate of development, is first based on the temps of the eggs, The condition of the eggs, and hormone clues. If she lays another clutch, this will totally change the time the eggs hatch.

Once we had a clutch(lacies) where the first egg hatched in 3 1/2 months and the last egg in the same clutch hatched, one week shy of a year. Right now, I am sitting on four argus cross eggs that are one year today, since they were laid. The rest of the clutch hatched 6 months ago. This delayed hatching seems to be tied to when they multiclutch.

Which makes me wonder, the scientists here, say montiors do not multiclutch in nature, yet when they do in captivity, the eggs have the ability to have all the clutches hatch at once. I wonder why they do that.

Anyway, its a good idea to put the eggs away and act like they never happened. Good luck FR

Thanks Frank will do
I just couldn't believe how many I finally got when she was done, for her first time. She is only three feet long. I was expecting 8 to 12 but 33, that was impressive. I am completely giving her, the space and time she needs, I just got a head start on the nesting material because I don't want to have another over three days laying happening again, this time I will be ready.
As it is the first set was a week early she laid exactly 2 weeks after I caught copulation, so I was shocked the night she started to lay because she ate up until that day no signs of her losing weight in her base, just egg laying.

But thanks again I will keep everyone informed over the next few months, a bit at a time.

JC