Reptile & Amphibian Forums

the past few days she has been digging a hole in one corner of her tank overnight and I always find her sleeping in it when I wake up. She has never done this before and is starting to show egg bulges in her belly so I think its about time to setup a box.

Question is.. I really dont want to take her out of her tank, so what should I do to set something up in it instead of housing her in a rubbermaid bin or something? Her substrate now is washed playsand. Should I just setup a box on one side of the tank and fill it with dirt or what? How big does it need to be?

And as far as the eggs go after she is done, how long can they be left in the nesting box before they will be no more good? Reason I'm asking is I think she is going to lay them this week and both my GF and I are working the same hours of the day and will be gone for most of it. I dont plan on hatching them myself, but a friend of mine is going to take them and raise them. Reason being I originally thought we had 2 females and I'm just not ready right now to take care of all of those little mouths! Thanks all!

I didn't put a box in my girls tank. I built her a mound of moist sand supported by big logs just incase she laid her eggs while I was at work and since my incubator wasn't quite ready when she laid the eggs they stayed in her tank for a few hours before I moved them to the incubator so if she lays the eggs in the tank they should have enough heat to keep them for a little while until you can get them out.

how big of a mound am I looking at?

Very big. Creating it inside of a dragons tank would be difficult. If a female really can't find a place to lay eggs sometimes she will settle for a smaller spot. Some won't, and will die from egg binding, some will lay in their tank. They want to find a place that they can tunnel into. Click on the breeding link below for more pictures of the egg laying process.

BREEDING PICTURES

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Considering that my girl is in a 50 gallon tank I made the mound about half way across the tank and about half to three quarters of the way up it. It was pretty big but I didn't want to take the chance of having her lay the eggs on top of the sand or letting her get egg bound. I did have a seperate laying bin set up for her but when she was ready to lay her eggs I'm glad that I had the mound in her tank too because I had no idea when she was going to lay since this was her first clutch. In fact she liked the mound so much that I left it in her tank until I cleaned it again but I did lower it so that she could climb on it. I know that all beardies are different but my girl laid her eggs exactly a week after she stopped eating so you never really can tell when they're ready. Good luck and I hope everything goes well.