Digging Dragon **pic heavy**

[Prannon]

Ok, in the past I've started up a thread about my beardie, Chopstick. I thought she had a case of parasitic worms. That was all sorted, I do believe, with a few visits to a local vet, some de-wormer, and a final diagnosis that she was clean, so great. She was doing well for a good long while and seemed to have a healthy appetite and all that.

Lately, she has started to act a little differently again. She has become very picky with regards to her food. Normally, I feed her Dubia roaches of all sizes. She has taken to refusing to eat those (unless I trick her into eating them). Yet, she will eat superworms with abandon. She also refuses to even touch greens.

Her behavior has changed as well. She takes to being sleepy for a large portion of the day, spends more time on the cold side of the pen, and seems rather lethargic for most of the day. Just a few minutes ago, I decided to rearrange a few things in the apartment, and when I placed her back in her pen, she immediately went to the "hide" and started digging around (I have her on carpet, so she can't really dig). Though she seems to have exited from there and is wandering about now.

She's about a year and four months old, so I'm wondering if she's getting ready to lay eggs or something (she hasn't mated or anything like that). Or if she's just going into a brumation phase or something.

Set up picture as below:

 

[Prannon]

Read the thread about egg laying, so I decided to go ahead and get some sand and a bin. Looks like I was right. She's digging...

 

[Prannon]

Alright, she's dug herself a tunnel and now she's really deep and far in there. So much so, the tunnel's entrance is all covered over with loose sand.

I'm a little concerned cuz I don't know what to do next. Will she come out on her own? Is she down in there laying or is she doing something else? Do I need to dig her out at some point?

 

[Prannon]

Getting late in the day, so I dug her up and cleaned her off since I didn't want to go to bed and not know how she was. Didn't want her to get buried alive in there. She seems well, though. She dug really deep and had a rather large chamber underneath all that sand! No eggs, though.

 

[Prannon]

Alright, put her back in there this morning and she went right back to digging holes. Here are some pics I took with my phone:

Looks like she's starting to come out now.

 

[beastiesmommy]

I've got a male, but from all the pics and posts I've seen, it seems like she's at least trying to lay. Keep an eye on her and if she keeps digging without laying anything, then have her checked to make sure she's not eggbound. Don't hold her on her back to examine her belly...beardies can't breath when they're on their backs... Best of luck and keep us posted!!

 

[kFitz]

I always pulled by girl out when the cave got too deep in fear that it would collapse. I would pull her out, repack the sand/soil mixture, and let her start over. Sometimes she would take a couple days of digging before laying, and sometimes she would lay right away. Her turning around like that is usually a tell-tale sign of egg-laying. Make sure to let her completely bury the eggs and pack down the sand before taking her out or she won't feel like her job is done. The first time my girl laid eggs, it took her about 3 hours to lay all of them. Good luck! And keep the pictures coming!

 

[Prannon]

Pictures? Nah, I got video! 2 hours of it. Check it out here:

http://prannonsbilliardhall.com/videos/diggy_lizard2.mp4

In this video, you can see that she kinda digs around, turns around, and then digs in another direction until she's got herself a regular burrow. She goes all the way in and basically doesn't come out for hours. I had to dig her up after her light turned off. No eggs, she just fell asleep.

I've felt her belly, and it doesn't feel like she has eggs to lay, but I've got her in my lay bin again and I'm trying to see if I can get her to do something this time. I was also able to get her to eat some roaches today so she didn't seem quite so picky about her food. I'm honestly not sure that this is anything other than general digginess at this point...

 

[Prannon]

Just a brief stream of my lizard being diggy again. I started it around 6:43 CST, so don't be surprised if nothing is going on: http://prannonsbilliardhall.com/live-stream