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Eggs are sweating! (and other things going on)
Matt and I are pretty excited! I checked the Zeke eggs yesterday, and quite a few of them are sweating, one is REALLY sweating hard! I am a little surprised, as we have been incubating at 78-81, and they were laid on April 27th (only 48 days), and we were expecting them to hatch closer to the end of this month.
Now, none of them are denting at all, just sweating. I am sure it is sweating and not humidity issues, as there is no condensation build-up in the container at all above the perlite level. I also candled all of them again, and you can see little babies growing in each one of them! I am not sure, but I THINK I might have a twin in one of them if I am seeing things right. But it is SO adorable seeing the little heads and tails right there in the eggs! I just pick up the egg completely out of the perlite, shine the light directly down from the top and look at it from the bottom up (for anyone that might want to try that).
So, since this is our first adventure into eggs, I DO have a few questions...
1. How long after they start sweating should we be expecting little ones? I know they have to dent first, but I do not know the time line between sweating and denting...
2. I have all 18 eggs in one tupperware shoe box with perlite. Should I separate any of the eggs into a separate container in case some start hatching and I do not catch it right away and they start running around? I doubt this will happen as I check the eggs several times a day, I am just being a little paranoid I think.
3. How long to do we leave them in the incubator before moving them into their tubs? Also, are they like leopard geckos and need moist paper towels the first few days/weeks, or are dry ones fine?
4. Incubating at those lower temps SHOULD give us mostly females, right? I know leopard geckos are like that, and I am about 99.9% sure that dragon eggs are the same way (78-82 females, 83-86 a mix, 87-90 males), but again, paranoia is setting in and I want to double check.
For now, that is it on the eggs.
I am keeping my eyes on Zeke very closely, as she is starting to look like a bag of marbles again all of a sudden, and you can feel the eggs in her again, so we should have MORE eggs coming soon. I was actually beginning to wonder what was going on with her, since she is taking this long to lay again after her last clutch. I guess she just missed a cycle, but this one she is doing EXACTLY what she did last time she laid - out of nowhere one day she looks like she is full of eggs when the day before she looked like nothing, and you couldn't feel a thing in her. Crazy dragon!
I am also beginning to wonder how true the people were that I got my breeding trio from were being to me. According to them, when we purchased the group, Big Momma had recently laid 16 eggs and was gravid. It has been since April 26th when we purchased her, and she has NEVER shown any signs of being gravid at all. So we put her back with Thunder last night to try again. He is a bit...slow in the mating game though. He grabs ahold of her like crazy, but we have yet to see them lock up. We know this does not mean it has not happened, but I am hoping he gets the job done soon so we can have babies from them by the time our show comes around in October.
We did put Zion with Storm about 2 weeks ago, and Storm went INSANE with the mating thing. Zion wasn't in that cage more than 15 seconds (literally) and he was locked up with her. In 24 hours, I saw him lock up 3 times, and God knows how many times he got her when I didn't see it. So we are hoping to see something from them too very soon. I guess that is the joys of having a younger, very eager male - I have a feeling he will be a serious stud for us lol.
The agama eggs are also sweating, so we should see 3 babies from them soon too! When we purchased the breeding quad, 1 of the girls was gravid for sure, and laid her eggs right on the plastic of the lay box 3 days after bringing them all home. So far we have not seen any signs of any of the other girls being gravid, and we have not seen any mating behavior outside of the male getting blue, but after doing some reading, we may try to separate the male for awhile then put him back in to see if that sparks his fancy. Maybe living with the girls full time just doesn't "do it" for him? I can't wait to see the babies though, they will be SO super tiny! Their eggs, after 45 days, are as big as a dragon eggs when it is laid!
So, thats the update. Any advice, suggestions or answers to my questions above would be great and highly appreciated!
Kelly Kordek
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