Eggciting Times!

Bad pun I know, but, today really saw the breeding season kick in for us with Lolly laying what I hope will be the first of a few clutches of eggs for the season.  I've known that she has been gravid for a while and as you can see from the first picture here, that was taken a week ago, she has been 'showing' for a while.  One thing that I am really dissapointed about is that I could have sworn that I made a diary entry at what I thought was the successful copulation date for this clutch, but, I cannot for the life of me find it!

I came home at lunch today to find Lolly in the throws of laying her eggs in the sandbox that I had put in the Dragons' Den specifically for that purpose.  Clever girl isn't she!  Here you can see a photo I took of her during the process.  I have a few things that I learned from this time.  I put the lay box inside the enclosure this time where as last time I put Lolly in a separate container.  I was worried that the external laying box was not getting up to the right temperature, which was the main reason I placed it inside this time.  Then I confronted two issues.  The sand needs to be kept relatively moist so it doesn't collapse as Lolly tries to dig out a suitable site to lay.  Secondly, I don't have anywhere to put Beau other than in the same enclosure and I was concerned that he might cause issues.

The first problem I addressed by using a spray bottle to wet down the sand box each morning it was in there and mix it all through.  This morning Lolly was camped in the box and so I couldn't go through this process.  Of course I think the sand was less than ideal in moisture level as a result, but, what can you do!  The second issues was a non event.  Beau kept to the other end of the enclosure and steered well clear of proceedings.

The third picture here is of the eggs neatly placed in their incubation medium and container that now rests in the incubator I made in the DIY Incubator Project.  The only difference between how they look now and as they are in this photo is that there are two extra eggs!  Apparently I interrupted Lolly before she had finished.  Whoopsie!  When I returned home from work this evening, I found two extra eggs in the Den.  Amazingly, Beau had his head resting on them.  It was like he was looking after them until I got home.  What a dad eh!  I quickly gathered them up and raced them out to the container in the incubator and they now sit about where the 5c coin is in this picture.  They looked ok and I could see what looked like healthy blood vessels forming so I have my fingers crossed.

The incubator is set to 30 degrees centigrade.  This is higher than I incbuated last season's clutch.  What this means is that they will incubate a little faster.  I expect to see them hatching in under 60 days this time.  So now we hurry up and wait!