|
Hello,
Thanks for the reply and advice guys!
Tracie,
Here's the quick scoop on her set up and stuff. She is housed alone and out of view of any other dragons in a 55 gal. aquarium. She has a Reptisun 8.0 full length UVB that is set on a timer. 14 hours on and 10 off. She has a Ceramic 100 watt heat bulb and dish. She has Astra turf for a substrate that is spot cleaned daily and deep cleaned weekly. Her hot spot in the cage is 108 F and the cool side is at 80 F. Her rescent pregnancy diet has consisted of Crickets, Superworms, a few silk worms as a treat, 2-3 pinkie mice a week, Kale and other mixed greens daily, assorted fruits and veggies twice a week. Everything is dusted once per day with Rep-Cal Calcium with D3. She gets Rep-Cal Miner-all once per week dusted on her food as well.
She is 1 1/2 years old 500 grams and around 21 in. in length. She's a big girl. Her weigh / Length date is next month. I'd do it now but I enjoy the suprise, lol. I will cut down on the pinkies then. I was just thinking that it would help with the high calcium she needed. Tracie, you suggested using other feeders instead. What do you suggest? None of my dragons have been tested for Adenovirus as of yet. I have tested them for everything else though and their results came out great. I recently learned of this virus you are talking about. I plan to get them tested soon for this just to be safe.
Cathy,
I don't know why egg shell thing popped up. I was just thinking that egg shells are bone "Calcium" and read somewhere that breeders will sometimes give this to their tortoises for an extra calcium supplement. I haven't read anywhere that Dragon breeders did this though and that's the reason for this thread. In reading I found that a female that doesn't get enough calcium before and during breeding / laying that the eggs might not have a high turn out rate. This and the fact that she could have serious health problems if not given a enough of the calcium. I was thinking...... We give our pregnant dragons pinkie's because it's high in calcium, right? Why not just put some finely ground egg shells on their food with their regular calcium powder and completely drop giving them pinkies other then a treat now and then? I know tortoise owners will often put a cuttlebone in the terrarium for the tort to gnaw on for extra calcium. I can't really imagine a Dragon gnawing on one of those. They don't seem to be chewers to me. Just a thought is all. I'm just worried that she isn't getting the amount of calcium that she need right now. Especially with the low egg turn out.
My whole worry here is her very, very low egg turn out rate. 42 eggs and only six are still in the game. You are probably right though on her age. She probably is too young then to properly lay viable eggs. I was told and read somewhere that they had to be at least 1 year old and 500 grams. Guess they where wrong, eh? The Male that I bred her with was 2 years old by the way.
It looks to me as though I'm getting my info from the wrong sources. I search google and usually come up with differant answers as to properly care, raise and breed the bearded dragon making it difficult to decide who is right. I have found that fauna has the most reliable info. Are there any other sites that are reliable? Lately I have been referring to Dachiu's care guides to get accurate info when I have a quick question or had forgotten something. I have spent hours and hours on researching all my pets and it's very frustrating when I find that I have been studying the wrong information.
In the mean time I will lay off of the 2-3 times weekly pinkies and put this girl on a diet. I haven't used the egg shells as of yet and will hold off until I can find more info on it. Oh..... just in case it pops up then this is how my incubator is set up.
I have a home made incubator. I had made it out of a small dorm room fridge. It hold temps perfectly with in a ( .1-2 degrees ). I have a Spyder Robotics Herpstat set at 83*. The probe is on the top shelf in its own container with moist vermiculite without eggs. The Herpstat controls two 40 watt black lights at the bottom of the incubator. I have a battery operated fan that very gently circulates the air for 5 min. (on) and (off) for 10 min.. I have the eggs sitting 2/3 deep in vermiculite in small containers with two 3/8" holes drilled into them for air circulation. The humidity in the containers are at 78-80% with condinsation on the lids. Not enough condensation though to get a large build up and chance the droplets landing on the eggs. Every two days I will check the eggs to give them fresh air and check the lids for built up condensation. If the condensation build up is too high I will knock off the access water droplets.
Thanks again for your help and advice!
Please let me know if you come up with any other thoughts,
JG
|