Baby Boom - Issue #4

How Eggciting!

This post is a little photo tribute to Lolly's first epic laying of eggs.  That's right.  At some time between 4pm and 5.30pm this Saturday just gone, Lolly successfully laid what we had been thinking for some time was her first clutch of eggs.

First off are a couple of photos of the 'dedicated' laying box I set up for her.  You can see that it is a large, deep tote tray filled about a quarter of the way up with kids play sand.  There is a hole in the lid that I glued fly screen to for ventilation and the lid itself is propped open slightly with a desk lamp with a spotlight glob in it for basking and heat.

I could tell that she has been close to laying for a week or so as she had been very restless and furiously digging at every opportunity.  I had placed her in this container a few times and she had spent her time digging constantly.  You may also notice an upturned shoe box with one end cut off.  This was to provide her with a place, away from the light and heat to look to create a 'nest'.  Wouldn't you know it, she did exactly that!

With the lid off (right), you can see the stylish shoe box.  This photo was taken after I had plucked Lolly out.  I had been vacuuming and washing the floors for about an hour after putting her in.  I had noticed that at one point, she had completely sealed herself into the box, closing off the open end of it with sand.  At this point, I started to get a little excited.

After what I think was about an hour and a half, she emerged from her efforts with sand all over her nose and from a distance a little different.  When I went over I was very pleasantly surprised to see that she looked an awful lot thinner around the middle.  When I picked her up, she was a great deal lighter and running my fingers accross her belly, I could no longer fell the tell tale marble like indicators that she was carrying eggs.  By that stage I was pretty excited.  I rang my girls who were out on a shopping expedition and JT answered the phone as her Mum was driving.  Much excitement and squealing followed.

As you can see from the next photo, after removing the box, the evidence of any work done by Lolly was completely non existent.  She had done an excellent job of covering her tracks.  You can see how hard it would be to find any trace of a nest in the wild.  Notice also how the sand on top of the nest is a little darker.  Dragons seek out slightly moist areas to lay their eggs.  The depth of their nest helps with maintaining a constant temperature for incubation.  As I mentioned previously, during the incubation period, the eggs will also absorb moisture directly from their surroundings.  The play sand used in my laying box comes out of the packet a little moist and maintained the moisture underneath the surface.  So Lolly was able to find suitable enough conditions for her to lay.

Next photo is of some of the eggs in the clutch as I uncovered them.  I had to hunt around for quite a while to find all of them.  I was painstakingly careful as I am sure you can understand.  The first one I lifted out with a teaspoon.  The rest I boldly did with my bare hands.  I have subsiquently read of people using rubber gloved hands, but, I think I would stick with my ungloved hands again should there be a next time.

Can you believe that Lolly, the little superstar laid a total of 26 eggs!  You read correctly, 26!  I could not believe what was happening each time I uncovered another cluster of eggs.  By the time I had half a dozen or so out, the girls had all arrived home.  JT and her sister were down on the floor with me wide eyed and every bit as enthusiastic as I was with every pearly white gem we uncovered.  As you will see below, we managed to get what look to be 25 potentially viable eggs.  I uncovered 1 egg that was squashed.  I was extremely careful uncovering the eggs so I am guessing that Lolly may have squashed it.  However, given the care that she took with her nest, it could just as easily have been me.

This photo is of the 25 viable eggs in the two plastic containers.  They are nestled in a mix of vermiculite and water in a ratio of 1:1 by weight.  That means, for every gram of substrate I put in a ml of water.  This mix, once sealed in the container will maintain a good consistency of humidity and moisture for the eggs to incubate.

Don't the little gems look amazing!  They are about the size of those small, solid chocolate Easter eggs that we all eat to many of each year.  I am still flabbergasted as to how Lolly fit all of them inside her.  Let alone for so long.  One of the indicators that Beardies are getting close to term is a loss of appetite.  As you can imagine, carrying such a load internally, does not leave much room for anything else.  Their organs get pushed up towards the front of their bodies and their stomachs simply don't have room to hold anything like the volume of food that they would normally.  A good indicator for next time is that I noted Lolly went off her food in the last week before she laid her eggs.  She is normally so voracious when it comes to food, I had some serious suspicions that the time was nearing.

The last photo is of where the eggs sit today and where they will continue to be for the next 40-60 days, in our incubator.  You can see, it has a nice digital controller on the top with readings on temperature and humidity collected from sensors inside.  Controls on the top to alter temperature, turn on the fan to improve airflow and turn on the internal light for when we want to take a better look.  The container itself is made of solid polystyrene foam.

I have placed the two containers of eggs, one under each window so we can keep an eye on them.  You might be able to make them out if you look closely.  I took this photo just before I took the containers out to start filling them with eggs!

So, now we wait.  Please excuse the long post, but, I am sure you can appreciate all that I wanted to pack in.  More to come soon!