Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey Frank,
From my own experience with my own varanids and from working with John As animals for the past 7 or so years, this is what I have seen.

My own female vranids while never being with males still laid eggs. The first time I noticed one of my Savs was carrying eggs I spoke to my a friend. He told me to offer deeper substrate and to also offer a nest box. I did what he said. The female went into the nest box every time to deposite eggs even though she had the option to lay everywhere else in her cage. The same for every other female varanid I ever owned that dropped eggs.

When Johns sulfer Cody was alive, she also dropped her eggs in a garbage pail nest box even though she had a huge cage with deep substrate and leaf litter. She may have laid a few times out of the nest box as well.

With the dwarf varanids in Johns collection, John and myself came up with a % of the time they lay their eggs in the nest box over the rest of the cage. It is roughly 95 to 98% in the nest box even though the cages have many other good nesting options.
I can think of only two animals and a few times that they picked to lay fertile eggs outside the nest box and one of those animals and times was a female yellow ackie that could not use the nest box because the was already another female nesting in it. The Ackie that laid the eggs had the option to lay elsewhere but still went for the nest box option first. Maybe your bad luck with nest boxes has to do with your location in the US Frank. Maybe it is harder for you to control your temps than it is for us here in the North East. Whatever the case is, you can not discount nest boxes as a good option especially since there are people who have had great sucess with them.

Keep in mind that I care for Johns collection for 4 months out of the year when John is away and spend plenty of time there when he is home. I personally have dug dozens of eggs out of nest boxes while he was away and have had some animals of his breed under my watch. John is clearly much more experienced with varanids than I am. I have learned a lot from him. There is a reason why John has me care for his animals while he is away and it is not because of my lack of knowlege or his lack of options.

I will contine this debate/conversation as long as you keep it respectful.

Hi Gregg, thats not the information I am looking for.

FIrst, infertile or unsuccessful clutches are not a good benchmark to learn from. So I am not interested in that.

I am interested in the quality of success you have with different species.

I understand that learning from failure is required, that is, until you can learn from success. This this that I am interested in.

You see, if we are going to compare the quality of a method, then we must compare successful results. That is, eggs that hatched, number of clutches, frequency, age, longevity, etc. As these are the numbers that are related to successful nesting. Not a female put some eggs in a box. Or infertile eggs in a box.

I am not being snotty, but we really need to compare important data, if we are to make a decent judgement. Thanks and best wishes

Ok, you can take my personal experience and throw it away. Thats fine being that the eggs laid were infertile. You can have that one.

But what I have seen from Johns collection with ackies, pilbaras, tristis, and kims, they seem to favor a nest box to the rest of the cage when laying fertile eggs.

You asked me what I have personally seen and I gave it to you. But for some reason it was not what you were looking for. I am not sure how complicated you want to make an uncomplicated process out to be.

The lizards have the option of nesting in any part of the cage they want and they are choosing the nest box the large majority of the time. It is pretty smple Frank.

I know for a fact that there are other breeders who use nest boxes and have the same or similar results. I will leave it up to them if they want to get involved in this conversation.

Like I said Frank, there may be other contributing factors as to why nest boxes do not work for you.

Hi Gregg, you keep missing what i am saying. I did not say nest boxes did not work for me. They most likely worked as well as yours did for you.

What I want to know is, age at first clutch, number of eggs, how many clutches a year, how close they were from clutch to clutch, number of successful hatchlings, etc.

You see Gregg, this is the results that you can compare, Not it worked or it didn't.

If you supply your, Johns results, then we can compare and not have to say, mines better, no mines better.

I have to say, I will put our results up to anyone. oh and by the way, mine have been published. And Johns reading these, so he can verify your reports.

If whole cage nesting did not work for you, then you sir are doing something wrong.

It worked for me like this, early on, I was very successful, but after years of improving our nesting, we doubled and tripled our successful results, on nearly all species. Mine you, one year, I produced neonates from 18 different species. One calendar year.

So if you could report your results, then we can compare and see if there is an improvement.

You see Gregg, this is why I get the feeling your young, in an experience sort of way. You tend to think is failed or succeeded, when you get past the basics, you can achieve many levels of results.

For instance, I reported many years ago, that our ackies have produced successful clutches at six months of age. Yet, most folks thought that was not possible. Just recently, Chris from the UK who is on our forum, recieved a perfect clutch from a six month old female. I also reported minimum size was 11 total inches. Chris has a litter mate to the one who just laid thats gravid and 11 inches long.

So I say, Chris has confirmed my reports.

So I have to say, put up some successful reports so we can compare. Then we, you and I can go to work on which method is superior.

You see, I have had success with both methods and others as well. To me its more about which method reveals superior results and which method is the easist to apply. Again, all measured by successful hatching.

So if I were you, I would investigate why your whole cage nesting did not work so well. As it has worked for me and many others in a superior way. That is, unless your results are superior to ours. Thanks

I also put boxes AND deep substrate in my cages. My impressions have been that Ackies, all the Gouldii types (Argus/Flavis) are very, very much wanting to dig long deep tunnels and don't use boxes at all. Some other species I have hatched out mix it up with boxes and ground substrates (Tristis/Kims/Pils). I've hatched out successfully everything in high % except the one Pil clutch died on me and I've not received any more eggs than that. I provide both options simply because sometimes I get lucky and they use the box and it's sooooo much less work on me to get the eggs out. Laziness...I admit. Generally, you can't go wrong making the whole cage "nestable" so long as you get those temperatures where the lizards want them and the moisture is there as well. That's my 2 cents....

-Krusty

I was really hoping we could do some comparative results, so you and others would understand Why I recomend whole cage nesting, when possible. Thanks

Hi Gregg,

Last year using deep substrate I received four clutches of eggs in four months from a single female. That totaled 53 eggs of which 49 were fertile and I hatched over 30 babies. I dropped a clutch on the floor, and screwed up a few other ways and also my incubator sucks so that should be factored in to my hatchrate.

She laid her first clutch at six months old, took a couple months off and then went off on a egg laying rampage, she laid five clutches by 14 months old.

I live in WA state were it is damn near arctic, I can take a pic of what outside looks like right now if you like.

Please do tell your numbers.

-----
"We are challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations" George W.

"Last year using deep substrate I received four clutches of eggs in four months from a single female."

Single female what? Species is key in a discussion on nest boxes, in my opinion.

Red Ackie

-----
"We are challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations" George W.

Thanks. They sure have changed over the years since first imported from Australia - the ones here don't rattle.

Hi Crocdoc, I recieved five clutches in a row from two different lacies, thats ten clutches, using whole cage nesting. Both females started in april and laid the last clutch for the season, in Sept. Our spring thru fall.

Also Dobry is using an apples to apples comparison with Gregg, as gregg is talking about odatria. Best wishes

I wish you could edit these replys, hahahahaha

Again, its not success vs. failure, its about success vs. success. I have found when they are given a number of good choices, they can decrease the amount of time it takes to lay eggs and increase the number of eggs laid. Its fairly simple, the longer they hold eggs the more stress it is on the female.

Whats odd is, you already know these animals know where they are going to lay in nature, no guessing or being held away from successful nesting, They know where the type of nests that work are, within their individual range and within their reproductive potential.

"...Dobry is using an apples to apples comparison with Gregg, as gregg is talking about odatria."

Bingo - that's exactly why I asked, because I think with some other species it would be like comparing apples to oranges.

"Hi Crocdoc, I recieved five clutches in a row from two different lacies, thats ten clutches, using whole cage nesting."

And how did that work out for you, Frank?

forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1958520,1958673

Relevant quote from your post: "Just to make it a bit real, I produced well over a hundred lacies, from four females, some laying five clutches a year, AND I STILL DID NOT HAVE NESTING RIGHT. As I lost each and every female to early reproductive failure."

I think lace monitors are the 'oranges' here because of how they nest in the wild.

Thats true Crocdoc, but there is more to it then nesting. As you know, I live north of the equator, and odd as it may seen, these animals do not time their breeding naturally to our opposite seasons.

The problem we have is southern hemispere varanids wanting to reproduce, on your seasons and not ours. This creates lots of problems which includes nesting. You know, nesting worked well when we could trick them into reproducing in our seasons, which was easy their first couple of years.

I guess I should have installed a hot water system like John Egan did, as all it takes is one failed reproductive event. Then then that occurred with John as well. BUt then, I am human, and it worked until it didn't.

ALso, I have no idea what your reasons are breeding lacies are, but I never wanted to produce them for decades, I produced enough, to a point of not even digging up eggs.

Or are you just being arguementative?

Crocdoc, you should have the experience by now to know, there is far more to this that simple nesting problems. You should also ask if you have questions, instead of playing some silly chess game.

The problem with your approach is, you do the same thing over and over, and somehow think your going to get different results. Sir, try something different, that is HOW YOU LEARN. Somehow, my brain does not work that way, I keep trying different approaches, I am just to curious I guess. Good luck being repetitive. Cheers

What an odd response, considering I was going to offer some advice on breeding lace monitors.

Cheers and good luck.

Greg i have a question on monitors using nest boxes instead of using the viv substrate & FR not been able to control his nest boxes as well you can in your area.

How cold is your area from the floor upwards, i thought i had my setup cracked heat wise for nesting sites, fully double lined & insulated floor etc.

But if you look at this pic you can see that my nile only went down to about 16" tunnel wise even in the summer months,there's 2 tunnels about 20" off the ground same level left hand side one not so clear & you can see the top winter one's she used under the cork bark left hand side.

So even in summer the bottom 20" of soil was no good to her, i've had to hand ball it all out & put 2 large 120l tubs on wood supports till i figure something else out.

Could you have the same problem in your area as i've had & that's why nest boxes work better?
this is slice view the other 2/3 have been moved out.

Can we see pics of the nest boxes in question. How much substrate is in the box etc? Pics are worth a thousand words. Im no master at this and im open to other ideas.
I personally have a pair of ackies that laid 28eggs in one season. The ackies are less then 2 yrs old and started about 8months of age. My experience sucks and I only hatched 3 lol from two of the clutches. My last clutch is around 7o days right now with all 10 going strong so maybe 13 out of 28 soon if lucky. I have another clutch which was just laid last week (new season?).
Background info out of the way, my ackies rejected all nest boxes I supplied. Always used the ground not far from the basking lights. Average depth for finding eggs is 13in which is my thought on why nest boxes didn't work.
I personally like John and he has always been helpful and I have purchased sims containers from him so I'm not jumping to anyones side for the sake of it.Just think pics my answer questions.

Hi Mark,
one of your problems is that you have a relatively large area to heat in comparison with the smaller species with their (usually) smaller enclosure size. I hope you work it out, (she?) could become gravid anytime soon, looking at her size just now!

Stefan, i think most UK keepers use nest boxes because of the problem of heating large soil areas, what i should of done is sat an 8x4 sheet of 1" marine ply on blocks & stuck one of those mini oil heaters under it.

I always new that the viv would have to expand at some stage, so that's what i'll aim to do in the next stage, i like playing & building for some reason!

Over the years i've had plenty of advice offered by some proven breeders on nest boxes, but even with all that advice you still don't know if the bloody things will work when you need it to big time!!

They have to feel secured, too. That's why a lot of iguana keepers make them out of two cat box with one inverted and place on top of the other. The inverted top one has a piece of flap cut out of the side to create an entrance just big enough for the green iguana...looks kindda like a mini-cave...kindda warm, dark and moist. This may not work as well as Frank's method.

i think tom Crutchfield makes them out wood with the opening place adjecent to the cage. The opening is just big enough for the iguanas to crawl in... the thing also double as a hiding spot and a place for them to retreat to during cold weather.

Hi Paradon, as crocdoc2 explained, if there`s a space at the top inside the "nest" box, they`ll use it as a hide, not a nesting site. It must be absolutely full, and very firmly tamped down.

Thanks for clearing that up...

Iggies are surface nesters like Beardeds, varanids are deep nesters.

Reason is, iggie eggs bearded eggs, etc, hatch very quickly, 65 days or so, sometimes much less, Our local surface nesters hatch in 28 days or so

. Varanid eggs take 4 months to over a year to hatch. So the nest has to be consistant for a very long time and almost always spanning several seasons.

So its a very very different kind of nesting and for good reason. Cheers

Mark, you`re so right, living in a temperate (as in very cold much of the time) climate can make things quite difficult in some respects. Perhaps over here with larger species/enclosures, "nest" boxes are the way to go.
With V. niloticus, it`s often thought they only deposit eggs in termite mounds in the wild, but that`s not true, it`s been very reliably reported that if the mounds aren`t in the area, they will dig their own nest. So at least you still have a good chance of making it work (unless of course I was right, and she`s a he)!!
Seriously, she must be close to being sexually mature, any idea of SV length just now?

Stefan,

you only asking me s to v because you can tickle yours under the chin!

mine would take my fingers off one by one & explain the facts of life to me!!

i'll say female still,but the only way to know will be eggs as you know.

No Mark, I don`t want him (her) to take your fingers off, and besides, they have blunt teeth as adults, so she would only break them, which means they`ll heal in time... (Maybe a long, long time, if she gets a decent grip)... (The end justifies the means)..
I wanted to know the SV because we might be able to say if she`s sexually mature now. I know you can get a decent estimate with that steel ruler, and she`s surely growing very well!

i'm sure if she twisted left then right & tugged down hard she might get lucky, if its only broken fingers what am i worried about!

her min SVL is 18", maybe 19/20" that's the best i've done so far against a piece of cork bark.