So guys, we have an exciting video for you guys today. It is New Year's Eve and
one of our bearded dragon females that we just started breeding, starting in
October I believe, she has just dumped a big pile of eggs for us. She is in the
middle of laying her eggs right now, so if we're very quiet we can check up on
her while she's laying her eggs, and we're really excited because like this
her first clutch, so it's like it's really we're really happy that she's
doing so well, that she took to the nest box really well, and that she's laying
some nice eggs, so fingers crossed that they're all fertile. She just bred
with a very good male, that is really good at giving us good clutches with the
females. So let's take a look at her, but we gotta be very quiet. Okay, so this, we
noticed her digging today, and we felt her belly and she had felt like she has a
few lumps, but she's pretty fat so we thought she wasn't quite ready yet, but
we put her in the nest box and she's only been there for a couple of hours,
and, let's take a peak.
She's very tired.
She's the middle of laying eggs. Now they usually lay at night time, so this is a
really rare look. We hardly ever get to see them lay eggs like this, and you can
see the contractions, can see her kind of wiggling her body. She's kind of in
the laying mode right now. Now usually their first clutches are
infertile, but they can be fertile so we'll keep our fingers crossed that these
are some good eggs. From where I'm looking they look really nice,
they look pretty big, pretty big for her size anyway so, we're gonna take very
good care of her once she's done laying her eggs. We're gonna give her a
probably, give her a nice soak to get her hydrated again. We were kinda suspicious
that she was ready to lay her eggs because she has slowed down eating. The
females will slow down eating when they're ready to lay, so you can see that
that puts a lot of strain on their body, so we will, we usually pamper them after
their laying. Oh, she just laid one. Yep, I just saw that one roll out, so that's
pretty cool. But once you see them start digging
that's when you know, that you gotta get them into a nice nest box. What we do with
ours is when we notice them digging, we'll put them in a nice nest box with
some nice Eco Earth in it. It's a nice damp Eco Earth. And what we'll do is we'll
close the bin, and we'll let them try to lay overnight, and if they don't lay
overnight, in the morning we'll take them out, put them in their cage, and we'll let
them have a day off. We'll let them like, be in their cage all night, all day and
all night, and then the next day we'll put them back in.
So every other day we try to give them a chance in the nest box, but this girl, we
put her in the first time, and she just she just went to town. Didn't you? You
just went to town.
You knew exactly what to do.
So guys I have a quick update. This is a close-up of her still laying her eggs,
but there's some good news. If you look at that front egg, you can just kind of
see that darker pink circle portion right there. Let's see if we can get a
little closer. Oh, there was a big contraction, we might see her lay another
egg here, but you see that red-pink circle right there, that's the embryo.
That's where the embryo implanted on the egg wall, so it looks like this clutch is
going to in fact be a fertile clutch. Which is really good news, especially as
it is her first clutch, and first clutches are usually not fertile. But
like I said, that male that she was with has been really great.
Looks like she's about ready to lay another one. There she goes.
Oh, it just came out.
Here comes another one.
Just amazing. We've never gotten such a nice up-close look at a beardie laying
eggs like this here. Just happened to be right in the middle of the day, as soon
as we put her in there man. So cool. Ok guys, it looks like she is all done and
she is in the process of filling in her nest. Now she's awake.
They get into kind of a trance state when they lay their eggs.
Now she's awake and she's ready to fill in that nest. Filled it in already. See the
eggs there. You're nudging the dirt the wrong way sweetie.
Oh, there we go. She's nudging the dirt towards the eggs. We're just gonna make sure they're
all properly buried. She's making herself look like she's an expert, this is her first
time. The instinct is strong with this one.
Gotta bury those eggs! Just stuffs her face in there. That's great. I can see some eggs, you
better get more dirt in there quick.
So what she's doing, she's like using her face as a shovel. Shovel the dirt into that corner.
Perfect shape of a head to do that too. Oh my goodness, yes. And here's Jennii, animal care manager,
she is putting the eggs away. Er, yeah, taking them out and putting them in the
vermiculite hatch cups. Oh my goodness, they are tightly packed. Yeah, she laid them in one
big pile.
Hurray! They are all done being cupped and now we gotta count them. 23, 24. Two dozen.
A month and a half from now these guys will hopefully hatch into some nice baby
beardies, so here's hoping. Well we hope you guys enjoyed getting to see F1's
first time laying eggs, and getting to see how many she laid, and yeah. It's
pretty cool. We don't get to see that too often, so we'll leave her alone, let her
recuperate and we'll see you all later.