Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Have a few questions here. First off, for those of you with dirt set ups, what have you found to be the best mix to keep the lower levels of the dirt humid? My little male uro has shown no interest in burrowing and seems to be quite happy with the hide spots I've provided for him. I decided to dig around the enclosure though and see how the dirt underneath the dry top layer was and I found it to be bone dry. I plan on transfering the females in soon as both appear to be in excellent health and I want to be sure they can burrow if they'd like, especially since the one appears gravid. How do I go about "watering" the cage? Can I just get a small jug of water and poor it around the enclosure making sure it is absorbed and there are no free standing puddles, or is it best to use a spray bottle?
As I mentioned, it appears one of the females may be gravid and I'm wondering how my incubation plan sounds. I have a large kane heat mat (24"x24" I believe?) and I had wanted to use top soil as the incubation medium. I was going to put the kane heat mat and about 4" of top soil in a rubbermaid and use this for incubation. The heat mat does have a rheostat, so adjusting the temp is no problem. Does this sound like a good plan? How might a I tweek it to make it better?
Thanks,
Brian

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1 Severe Macaw
3 Mali Uromastyx

(Have a few questions here. First off, for those of you with dirt set ups, what have you found to be the best mix to keep the lower levels of the dirt humid?)

It’s not only the mix! It’s the volume and the cage design, an open top will let heat and humidity escape.

In regard to incubation;
I would follow advice from breeders who already hatched this specie! Obtaining different views will only confuse and get you farther from your objective, once you start with a technique you can’t change en route!

Rgds

"Obtaining different views will only confuse and get you farther from your objective"

Isn't that what the forum is all about? Getting the views and opinions of others to help one decide on an appropriate route?

One person's experiences may be much different than another's yet with the same level of success. Just like stated on post forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=439536,440127, "...kind enough to open other doors...."

Just a thought.

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2.1 - Rocky, Runako, and RoxyIII

In regards to egg incubation many good techniques can be applied, however once you start with one you must continue throughout the entire incubation, eggs are much less forgiving the adults. If I was to say how aim planning to incubate my future uromastyx eggs, it who’d be of little value to Ryan as I have no uromastyx egg experience yet, however I can share a minimum basic egg husbandry that can be applied to most reptiles egg, this without interfering with incubation techniques graciously offered by top breeders.
Retiles eggs totally rely on there environment to develop, as opposed to foul eggs there yolk drops to the bottom under the influence of gravity, this making them vulnerable to heating from any under source, also this why they can’t be turned as it who’d drown the embryo. Furthermore the medium is not as important if it can hold humidity and temperature any medium will work for incubation, even no medium if conditions are good, temperature and humidity is the first and foremost ingredient any female looks for when nesting, provide all the types of dirt in the world if it doesn’t sustain eggs its worthless to her, once the eggs are incubating at a predetermined temperature, humidity must be lowered by 10-15% or more as saturation will suffocate the embryo (to better understand try breathing thru a wet cloth) many breeders raise humidity to high to help them hatch (big mistake) this in any species, all reptiles incubate at variable temperature and humidity, these variable are often subtle but nevertheless of grate importance, they stimulate in the early embryo development the hypothalamus witch is responsible for all genetic inherited traits like skin pigmentation, gender, and all the little things for witch mommy isn’t there to teach them, feeding thermoregulation and hydro regulating, cycling and ultimately nesting.

Therefore incubation is the highest level of husbandry, and the best advice I can offer to someone about to incubate his first clutch is to follow one proven direction until experience shows him a better route.

Rgds

Ps. keep a water bottle in your incubator; this will avoid thermal shocks when you need to add.

In my one cage that has about 6 inches soil/clay/sand mix, I have large basking rocks that go to the bottom of the cage. I usually poor water from a watering can over the rocks and then lightly over the rest of the cage. So far this has worked. I wet it pretty well about 1x every 2 or 3 weeks. I have a closed top.
Seems to work!
Beth

just pour water in, it will dissipate. with proper heating and basking, you needn't worry about "rapid" absorption, or standing puddles, but you shouldn't be pouring in so much water that it sticks around more than a minute or two anyway.
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

Yeah, I was watering the soil the other day and I accidently dumped the cup I was using and the water just ran down into her little buried hide thingy and it was soaked and muddy down there. Sam must have heard all of the commotion, because I came in a couple of minutes later and she was down in the hidespot investigating. What a mess afterwards.

I was also looking in her cage yesterday, and all of a sudden I thought "wait a minute, when I put the stacks in, I sunk the bottom one in so it would be like a burrow", but the bottom one wasn't sunken in anymore. So I thought, maybe the soil packed down around it, but no. My guess is she went inside the fake little burrow of a hidespot, and somehow managed to stand up and hold up the two stacks a little, but I'm not sure how the holes where it set in would get filled up. These lizards...crazy.

This is what I have been doing, I just wanted to get some more insight on it though. I need to pick up a misting bottle today to use for the new eggs, I may try giving that a try so I can get the water spread out more evenly.
Thanks,
Brian
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1 Severe Macaw
3 Mali Uromastyx

I've never tried this myself, but it sounds like it would work; Dick Bartlett, in several of his books, suggests that you take a small diameter PVC pipe and drill a ring of holes near one end, then place the tube, upright and holes down, in one corner of the tank and add your substrate...When you need to water, just pour water down the pipe and it will dissapate out the holes and into the bottom layer of substrate, leaving the top layer dry...

Might be worth a try...

SR

I had read this in a previous post and was gonna give it a try, but then I realized, you're gonna need a lot more than just one tube in a 5' x 2' enclosure. I don't think it would look right with a bunch of tubes, so my next thought was to just place them in when needed. But, when comparing time and effort, using a glass or misting bottle would be quicker and easier and would do just as good a job. Not to mention, I think my living bulldozers would have those tubes positioned and buried within minutes.
Thanks for the suggestion though, if my new eggs hatch, I may gives this a try in the babie's enclosure.
-Brian
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1 Severe Macaw
3 Mali Uromastyx