Reptile & Amphibian Forums

or rather, up from the ground : )

after an apparently LOOOOOOONG incubation, we had a plethora of Ornate babies come out today : )

we haven't gotten a baby count yet, we still need to catch most of them...

these are from our 10 ft circular tanks, with 2 ft of soil, the eggs were laid somewhere underground, and must have hatched recently.

judging from the time the gravid female went down and came back up "empty", i was getting worried that we had bad eggs, no eggs, dead eggs, something other than success.

hold on to your shorts now, the female laid sometime in late March. March 26th was the day we marked as having her go down to lay. that is about 200 days until we saw babies today. holy smoky cows.

we have a temperature gradient in our soil, the female can burrow anywhere from the high 90's to the high 70's, with a moisture gradient as well. i have no idea where the eggs hatched at, nor do i have plans to dig up the tank to look for them.

but we are very happy with our first Ornate hatchlings, and according to our records, we have another female that went down a few weeks after this first female, so i will continue to watch for babies.

hatching babies "in-situ" is extremely exciting, now we have to work on making it a regular occurence : )
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

Congratulations! It must be really exciting to see all those little ones running around. Let us all know how many when you get time to catch them. Hope your other ones hatch soon. It seems like you have hit on a successful, albeit,long way to get them to hatch. Best of luck with all of them.

Pam
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2.3 varanus acanthurus brachyurus (Dorado, Oro, Dora, Freckles & Amarillo)
1.1 varanus acanthurus acanthurus (Tabasco & Sprite)
1.1 u. macfadyeni (Amani & Abeba) RIP Ayana
1.2 u. ornata (Husani, Zari, & Bintu)
1.1 u. ocellata (Zuhri & Ashai)
0.1.1 u. a. aegyptius (Zahra Urbi & Halima)
0.1 u. a. acanthinurus (Mandisa)
1.1 hyla chrysoscelis (Pudge & Squirt)

quick pic of a few babies...

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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

NICE JOB Robyn ! Stunning Colors
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PHEve / Eve

Contact PHEve

Robyn,

It is quite an accomplishment to naturally hatch out uromastyx. Congratulations to you and the rest of the Pro Exotics' team.

hey hey, congrats! 200 days? that seems like a long time, what is the "normal" hatching time? i thought it was more like 70 days
those babies are adorable, good job!
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vonnie
***The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage.
— Mark Russell***

congratulations on the new babies! They're adorable.

You guys have managed to grow uros to adult size about 4 times as fast as they usually would, yet it takes about 3 times longer for them to hatch out than they would if incubated. Funny how that works out.

Great job Robyn! By the way, I've got soil in the enclosures of almost all of my reptiles now (the bearded dragon, the mali uro...whom I'm sure you remember, and the baby russian tortoise which I just recieved today). The only one I don't have on soil right now is my leopard gecko, because he really gets into it when feeding time rolls around, and I'm hesitant to put him on soil just yet. Even so, when I do, the soil will mostly be covered with rocks anyways (since leos come from a rocky area). But all of the reptiles have been doing great. The fat, burned, rescued uro that I was sure wouldn't live a year is going on her second year in my care this december, and she's thriving. My bearded dragon has never really thrived. I think dryness and high temperatures as well as a bad diet and lots of parasites have done some damage on him I didn't realize when I got him how much I was doing wrong

Just wanted to update you on everything. I remember last time I saw you around the forums, we used to just argue all the time, mostly because I was unwilling to accept the fact that your theories were right.

When I first rescued my uro, she had white patches where her burns had scarred, and then black around that. Since then, the white scar has been spreading, but the black is not. It's like the whiteness is spreading over the black. Would you assume this is just a natural process of scarring or what? I should probably ask a vet about this, but I figured that you have experience with keeping uros under high heat, and I wanted to make sure that it wasn't the basking temps that were doing it to her (which are currently around 145 surface temp).

the female that laid went from hatchling to successful reproduction in less than a year and a half. i thought we could do it in a single year, and i also thought we could multi-clutch, i am still working on those aspects : )

as for your scarred Uro, a vet with a first hand look is definitely the best choice, but that could be the spreading of the original scar tissue. i haven't had a problem with hotter lights, but be sure you are using a flood bulb with a wide enough cone to cover the ENTIRE animal when it is basking. a spot light, or flood that it is too close to the basking spot, and hence a smaller diameter cast, will concentrate heat on only one part of the body, and burns can, and will, occur.
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

It's about time for a checkup with the vet for her anyways, so I'll see if I can get that prepared before it gets too cold here. She is under a flood bulb. It is one of the ones with the clear hexagon in the center, but I swept over the basking spot with my tempgun, and there seems to be even heat distribution.

I think it is spreading of the scar tissue, but I want to know when the spreading will stop. I don't want to end up with a rough, white uromastyx.

Are you going to be selling the babies? They look awesome!! Also, are you guys at PE going to be breeding ackies anymore?! I've been looking at getting a pair of them or uros. Anyways, congrats on the babies!!

it has been very exciting, and we will be selling them in the next couple of weeks. the first goal is to get them set up and feeding. done. next is to see progress and weight gain, then i can take some time to evaluate the babies, price, and sell : )

as for Ackies, we took a couple of years off with those (a terrific monitor) but we are starting groups up again now, so i expect to start hatching babies again in mid to late 2006 : )
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

Sounds good. I'll be looking to get a pair. Thanks!

good job Robyn...can't wait to see more about this. Could we get some pics of them in the enclosure too??

thanks for all the support. i didn't take pics in the big cage, but i will take pics of the babies soon and post them up here for folks to see : )
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles