Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My gravid female veiled is nearing her laying time. Her cage is all set, and has been since being paired, with a container of sand, filled with 50 lbs of sand. The incubator is being prepared tonight. The only thing that I don't feel confident about is the handling of the eggs once laid. I know i have to dig them up and not rotate them because of the air pockets in the eggs. Do I touch them? Aren't the eggs incredibly impermiable? Will washing with antibacterial soap do any good? Or will that also be soaked up by the shell? What is the best way of going about this?

50 lbs. of sand? Dang, you must be expecting a giant clutch lol.
I probably used 2 lbs. of sand a 2 lbs. of potting soil in the flower pot mine laid in. Its ok to handle eggs early on, it takes awhile for the embryos to really attach itself. Do try to keep them static when moving them and minimize any rotation or jarring motions. Also, try and set them up so they're not touching each other which will help prevent premature hatching of any eggs that aren't quite ready to go when the 1st ones start.

Bill

You can roll the eggs with no effect until they break diapause.
Once you have them in your incubating material you can take a sharpie and mark them so if they should get jarred you know which side is up. Once they start developing you don't want to roll or forget which side is up or they can drown.

As for the 50# bag of sand I bought those also only I used about 3#'s of it. Then I just started getting it from the playground and has worked great for my female when she needed to dig.
Good luck and if you forget about them time flies lol.
Both my clutches hatched at 6 months and my last clutch of 20 is due to hatch around December.
Good Luck and enjoy the eggs as the babies are alot of mouths to care for but lots of fun.

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0.0.42 Ambilobe Panther Chameleons

I use a plastic spoon both to dig them up with and to move them one at a time to the container I'm using to incubate the eggs in. This way I don't have to touch them and they won't ge3t my germs on them...or any soap residue either.

I place the eggs in rows so there is about 3/4" space between the eggs in all directions. This causes the eggs to hatch over a few days instead of all at once. I have had a very good survival rate doing this. My feelings are that each baby has a better chance of being as well-de3veloped as possible that way.

One other thing that I feel is worth mentioning...I leave a little "head room" in the container so that once the eggs have hatched the babies have enough space to walk around in the container until they can be removed.

Good luck!