Bearded Dragon EGG Question?!?!

[p_i_r_sales]

Hello,

I have done a ton of research long before I was going to breed my female. Well.... I figured that I was knowleged enough on this topic so I built a home made incubator out of a dorm room fridge, bought all the thermostats and so forth, calibrated it and threw the male in with the female.

To make a long story a little shorter, Life got very busy through the month of December as we all know, lol. I noticed my male and female going at it like newly weds for about four days. Note: This is her first time breeding. I pulled the male out and fired up the incubater. The power went out one night so I just left it unplugged. I figured that I still had a bit of time till she was going to lay. I wanted to brush up on my breeding study but got too dang busy. Every day though I thought to myself...I have to get this done!

I noticed her acting like a beardie on crack, running around the cage and digging at the carpet. She was eating like it was her last meal every time I fed her. A PIG! She got nice and fat and I felt that she had eggs in her stomach.

With being too busy I neglected to do my brush up on this subject. I went and bought an egg laying bin a couple days ago and through it in there with her to see how it fit in the cage. It fit perfectly! Yesterday morning I noticed her just sitting in it, No Dirt. I thought to myself.... That's cool. At least she's not afraid to go in it. I went and bought some top soil to put in the bin yesterday afternoon. When I got home around 6pm I took the dirt to fix up the bin and shockingly noticed that she had laid 21 eggs. She was still sitting in the bin with the eggs around her. I moved her to a differant cage so she wouldn't trample the eggs.

Frantically I refired up the incubator and moved the eggs a little closer to the warm side. The cage was at least 80 degrees where the eggs were sitting.

All the eggs looked great but one. 20 of the eggs were nice and white and firm. The one bad egg was a nasty looking yellow color so I figured it was bad and threw it. I then placed all the eggs in the Vermiculite and placed them in the now perfectly controled and calibrated incubator. Only took about 45 minutes for it to get to the right temps and humidity.

After placing the eggs in the container I noticed a small demple or indent in almost everyone of the eggs. Is this normal after being laid or for the condition they were laid? I can't remember for the life of me and like I said earlier I needed to brush up on what I studied. I tried searching everywhere but didn't find anything on this topic.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. I'm not sure how this hatch rate is going to be due to this being her very first lay and on top of that I go and screw it all up by procrastinating.

Thanks,
Jerit

P.S.

Incubator Temp. is at: 84.5 degrees.

Humidity is at 75%

Both gauges are in the container on the top shelf.

 

[shinkster]

I don't know about your eggs, cuz I'm still waiting (impatiently) on my first clutch right now. Hopefully everything will turn out ok with the eggies, though. Where in CO are you? I've had so much trouble finding other dragon people around here.

 

[p_i_r_sales]

Hey,
Hows it going? Thanks! Me too. The eggs are seeming to demple quite a bit more. I bought the Thermo-Hygro Meter from Big apple Herp. Last night I was adjustng the Humidity Gauge on it and it fell apart on me. I think I wasted $30. It feels and looks kinda cheap too, so I don't recommend it. I went to walmart and bought a really nice well made one for only $11. I don't know if the humidity is correct though. The cheaply made humidity gauge read 75* and this new one from walmart is only reading 31-32*.
I live in Northglenn Co., What about yourself?

Jerit

 

[shinkster]

down in the springs here.

the incubator i've set up so far is just a styro box with water and an aquarium heater in the bottom. floating a sandwich size plastic container with some soil in it (cuz I couldn't find vermiculite around here and there's no perilite that i can find that doesn't have plant fertilizer in it). *sigh* i've got a bid in on ebay for a labratory incubator. cross your fingers for me.

humidity i think is gonna be the hardest part around here. i figure my water heater design i've got going will hopefully help with that some.

tell your eggs not to give up. hopefully someone with some sound advice will stop by the thread soon :-D

my girl's digging and doin the butt wigglin thing they said to watch out for now. FINALLY. (been expecting this for a week)

 

[p_i_r_sales]

Sounds like a good idea! Have you had success with it so far or is this your first attempt as well?
I found Vermiculite at lowels. They have the type that doesn't have the fretilizer or any of the bad stuff in it. It's in a smaller bag and costs around $5.

I just checked the humidity gauge again and it's still reading 31*. Getting a little irritated now, lol. Now I need to return this one and get one that works. The Humidity should be alot higher then it's reading. I even put a little dipping cup of water in the corner of the tub to increase the humidity. The sides are clouding up with condensation but the gauge still reads 31*.

I tried ebay too. The incubators are still pretty high. You should look into maybe making your own out of a fridge. Shortly I plan on writing about it with detailed instructions. I'ts VERY easy to build. The hardest part is taking everyones differant stories on how to make one and decide what idea is going to work best. My creation keeps temp. like you wouldn't believe. Even if I open the door it takes no time at all to get back to the set temp. It's wonderful! The most expensive part was the thermostat itself. Everything else was pennies on the dollar. I was even able to find the fridge for free. I think total cost was aroud $200 after everything. It should hold around 100-120 beardie eggs. Maybe more... I havn't fully tested the size capacity yet, hopefully soon eh?

But if you can afford the prices for a professionally made incubater then that would be the way to go for sure! This way you don't have to worry about screwing anything up and that is worth its weight in gold, lol.

What type of morphs do you have in the oven?

I'm cookin' Saturday Red / Cawley Red X Pastels.

Thanks,
Jerit

 

[shinkster]

-_- i sat here and waited till 2:30 in the morning and that little snot didn't lay anything. so it looks like today may be another sit and wait day.

i have one male and two females here (plus some babies that i bought to determine how much work this would be exactly). the one gettin ready to lay is a mystery girl with an orange beard and beauitful lavendar sidebars. i adopted her from the store i work at. my male is citrus x super orange. my other female is citrus x redflame sandfire.

 

[shinkster]

i just thought of something else. forgot where i ran across this thread to begin with... you'll probably have better luck getting responses to your questions in the bearded dragon discussion forum than in the classified.

 

[p_i_r_sales]

Hey Karen,

Hmmm. You might be right, Ha! I thought this was the bearded dragon forum. I was having alot of trouble trying to write a thread. I couldn't quite figure out where to go. I'll try and find it again and re-post the question there I guess. Thanks for noticing that! No wonder it's taking so long for people to reply.
Your Dragons sound pretty. Should make some good babies!
You said that you adopted one from where you work.... Do you work for a Vet or something?

Hey, I was reading... I forget where but it said from a few differant breeders that beardies sometimes lay their eggs between 1-7 pm. I'm not sure as to how much truth there is about that but my dragon laid hers between the hours of 3-6 pm.
Thought I'd save you some shut eye, lol.

My eggs are starting to look a little better this morning. I think the dimples are starting to raise on most of them. I'm about to head out in search of a working humidity gauge. I think I'll try lowells next.

I hope she lays for you today!

Talk to ya later,
Jerit

 

[shinkster]

i'm a dog trainer for petsmart. She came in with a bunch of dragons that were bigger than her and ended up needing part of her leg amputated. petsmart doesn't sell animals that they don't feel are in optimum condition. she was the prettiest from the get-go. when she first came in we wondered if they'd sent her by mistake because generally we only get normal colored beardies.

Nothing so far... guess she's got two more hours to lay today to be on time

glad your eggs are looking better.

 

[shinkster]

why don't you just get a humidity gauge at petsmart or petco or something? instead of looking at all the hardware stores and stuff?

 

[p_i_r_sales]

Hey Karen,

That jobs gotta be fun!
I went to Petsmart and they had a few gauges. I'm really trying to find one that has a probe. This way I don't have to open the cage so often. PetsMart had 2 differant types. The regular round non-digital type and the digital Thermo-Hygro meter. Non of which have probes. If you come across one at work with a probe then drop me a line.
I then went to Lowells, Radio Shack, Walmart again, Scales & Tales and Petco. I did find this little cheapy though that is non digital at Lowells for only $2. I guess I'll search ebay and online for a good digital hygrometer with a probe. Until then this one will have to do, eh?


Best of luck with her laying! I read that sometimes the dragon may need some alone time in order to feel like laying as well. Or a dirt box that is covered so she gets some privacy. Try that if you already haven't.

Talk to ya later,
Jerit