Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok Marcia,

The ladies are digging, so I'm trying to be proactive and ready. I know that one way or another, that I'm going to make this more complex than it needs to be. Based on losing 4 clutches last year, I hope you will forgive any questions that seem stupid. I'm prepared to accept stupidity if it will pave the way to hatching eggs.

I am the proud owner of 2 styrofoam shipping boxes from my LFS. I am assuming that you incubate with the lid on, but do you put any air-holes in the top, or simply open them daily for air-flow?

- Equal weight of water and medium for incubation substrate?

- 50% relative humidity in the incubator, egg-container, or both?

- Ideally temps in the low 70's to high 60's?

Can I just send the eggs to you and have you hatch them?

>>Ok Marcia,
>>
>>The ladies are digging, so I'm trying to be proactive and ready. I know that one way or another, that I'm going to make this more complex than it needs to be. Based on losing 4 clutches last year, I hope you will forgive any questions that seem stupid. I'm prepared to accept stupidity if it will pave the way to hatching eggs.
>>
>>I am the proud owner of 2 styrofoam shipping boxes from my LFS. I am assuming that you incubate with the lid on, but do you put any air-holes in the top, or simply open them daily for air-flow?
yes with lid, no holes, open weekly to check moisture of substrate until the last month. Then I check a little more frequently, like every few days, until I see the eggs sweating. Once they start to pip I open every day as the hatching babies need plenty of oxygen.

>>
>>- Equal weight of water and medium for incubation substrate?
yes
>>
>>- 50% relative humidity in the incubator, egg-container, or both?
in the incubator. I only place the lids on loosely until they pip so the humidity should be equal in both incubator & container.
>>
>>- Ideally temps in the low 70's to high 60's?
NO! low to upper 60's. Try to keep it below 70 and you'll have a lower mortality rate.
>>
>>Can I just send the eggs to you and have you hatch them?

Actually, I did move 4 incubators full of eggs when we moved from Omaha NE to Chamberlain SD and had 100% hatch! I wouldn't trust any of the commercial shippers though! LOL!

Keep us posted on their progress. I'm pulling for you!
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

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Signature file edited. [phw 9/13/04]

Thanks for the reply Marcia. I'm expecting them to lay some time within the next week. It's funny, one of the females will make her way into the nesting box, and the other will climb down from her perch and watch, or display a few head-bobs. So, I believe that they will likely lay a short time apart. Each seems a bit posessive of the nest box.

That is pretty funny. I know that at one time I had 7 females in a greenhouse that was 4' long by 2'wide. It seemed that anytime one of them was nesting the others would migrate to the other end of the enclosure. Other times I have had 2 digging holes in the same end but different corners. It will be interesting to see how they behave in the upright vivs with the smaller floor space!
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

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Signature file edited. [phw 9/13/04]

Zoe laid first, she looked exhausted - and still has me worried. She laid 20 eggs. I'm concerned because she still looks like she may be holding a few.

Daisy ate for me this morning and although I'm confident she is gravid as well, she has yet to start excavating with purpose.

for my 2 clutches, the first clutch's eggs all seem to be firm and dark, and some are dimpled. I am assuming they are bad, the second clutch has about half the eggs looking less dark than they did when I first retrieved them, and looking VERY good, and the other half all looking about the same as when I retrieved them, not dimpled, and not darker or lightening up at all.
so i might have one ro two babies when I get to easter after all

One of the new guys is WAY skinny, so I encouraged him t eat 2 smaller nightcrawlers last night, he is missing the claws off of his left hand, but he has spunk, and gets BRIGHT color when I grab him, so I have high hopes he is just a skinny guy normally (like my baby brother is)
another of the females (the second to lay) still has a belly to her, but I cannot feel anything like an egg in there, and she has been hanging out on the ground for a few days. So I got her into the water, and she is chilling out there, but I will feed her a worm and get her a dose of Cipro in Pedialyte and lactulose
I hope she will be ok.
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Elizabeth (ecb)

Make this world a better and more beautiful place that You have been in it
*Edward W Bok*

Best of luck Elizabeth. I actually woke up to find 4 more eggs laying on top of the nesting box. As I thought, she wasn't quite finished, and simply laid these from her perch and they fell into the nesting box. Two looked salvageable.

My male is consistently much thinner than the females, and his appetite does not approach theirs. He has been off-feed for just over a week now, but still appears to be in very good health.

The clutch is in the incubator - I weighed the perlite and then added the same volume of water to the container. I had to resist the urge to add more water. I was accustomed to hatching out baby leopard geckos and having the medium virtually saturated.

Did your vet dispense Cipro as a wide spectrum anti-biotic?

he does to me

but I am a Nurse, and know how to administer, and he knows I will call him first.
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Elizabeth (ecb)

Make this world a better and more beautiful place that You have been in it
*Edward W Bok*

I agree with zrho, the males are almost always thinner than the females and it seems with my groups that the males stop eating about the time the females start laying. They eat, but not much and not often. I have often wondered if they should be brumated or cooled down at this time.

When Darrell was still alive it wasn't unusual for him to scare me into thinking he was dead. He would do the frozen charlie pose with his eyes open or closed and just lay wherever, even in the water. I could pick him up and he would be totally stiff. I couldn't move his legs and he wouldn't budge. One day I carried him to the living room with tears in my eyes to show his dead corpse to my hubby when all of a sudden he blinked and stood up! He fathered many more eggs after that episode!
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

What do you mean by dark? Are they stained from the substrate they were laid in? If so this shouldn't hurt them at least. When did they lay the eggs?
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

stained from the substrait
but they are also harder, firm like a hard boiled egg would be

and the 24 were from 2 cluches, one clutch on one side of the nesting box (with 13), one from the other (with 11)
They layed in Damp Coir
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Elizabeth (ecb)

Make this world a better and more beautiful place that You have been in it
*Edward W Bok*

Yup, I use coir as well, and it sticks to the eggs like lint and invariably gives them a brownish cast.

Marcia, can I candle these right off the bat or should I give them a few weeks and see if they start to go one way or the other?

You can candle them right away. Usually they will glow yellow if they are slugs and pink when fertile. I have had some that glow sort of an orangy color and that really messes me up! LOL!

Even when they look yellow I keep them until they start to go bad. The clutch that Bleu laid this weekend were laid in the coir blocks I have on the floor of the reptarium so they were dry and shriveled when I got home. I put them in moist perlite anyway and they are plumping back up but some are this bright lime color. I don't know if this is because I misted them or if it is because they are duds. This female has only produced duds and deformities so far so I am not sure what the status will be. The ones that are white look fertile but it is hard to tell. I will leave them until I know for sure that they are bad or not.
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

Congratulations! Looks like nice bright white eggs too. And 24! That is a new record to the best of my knowledge! I have never had more than 21 if I am remembering right. Wow! She should have been exhausted! After a clutch that large I would really pamper her. She is probably already cookin up a second clutch so she will need to regain her strength quickly.

Wow!
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

Daisy clutched today. 15, good-looking eggs. She has eaten every few days for me, right up to yesterday. She, in contrast to Zoe, looks no worse for her efforts.

Randy, the underwhelmed dad, could not be located for comment.

>>Daisy clutched today. 15, good-looking eggs. She has eaten every few days for me, right up to yesterday. She, in contrast to Zoe, looks no worse for her efforts.
>>
>>Randy, the underwhelmed dad, could not be located for comment.
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html