Dragon Eggs Deflated - HELP PLEASE

[beardiemommy0146]

Hello, I am a first time breeder and I need some help asap. I would appreciate any help I can get.

Here is my story: My son got a bearded dragon from his god father for his bday. Her name is lizzy jub jubs and she is around 3 years old. We had her for about 6 months and she seemed miserable so we though maybe we should get her a mate to keep her company. I found a boyfriend for her (Todd Toaderson) and brought him home. I introduced them and Jub Jubs began to attack. I quickly learned that Jub Jubs is actually a BOY!!! The guy that I bought Todd Toaderson from refused to take him back so I had to find an enclosure and set up for him asap. So now we have 2 miserable males in separate enclosures, so we bought 2 females to keep them company. They seemed very happy and now we have 4. They began to breed and I researched a lot on beardies and breeding and bought everything I needed to care for them including an incubator incase we got babies from them. We slim (one of our females) laid a clutch about 72 days ago and we carefully excavated them from the sand/soil laying box and placed them in vermiculite in the incubator at 85 degrees with 80% humidity. Her eggs were a deep yellow brown color and I thought there is no way these eggs are good from everything I have researched on line but then I thought I will try to incubate them anyway just incase. Maybe it is her breed that has different colored eggs. I believe Jubs is a German Giant as well as the eggs are at least 5 times the size they were when they were laid. She laid a second clutch about a month later and I incubated them as well at the same temp and humidity. Unfortunately, all but 1 out of the 15 eggs from the second clutch collapsed and started to mold so they had to be tossed. The tragic part of it all is our beautiful girl died 2 days after she laid her second clutch. Me and the kids were very sad and cried lots. Gave her a proper burial and the only comfort we got from it all is that Slim still has some babies on the way to carry on her name. It has now been 72 days and the eggs have not hatched yet. However, 6 days ago 5 out of the 16 eggs deflated completely. I have candled them several times (because of the color of the eggs) to see if they are fertile or if I can see a mass and all of the eggs have the red veins and a dark mass at the bottom of the eggs but I have yet to see a little guy moving around in there. 3 days ago, I decided to pierce one of the completely deflated eggs because I had to see what I have been incubating this whole time. I pierced just the top and made a small tear to look inside. There was no liquid at all in the eggs but there was a hard moist sack of yolk and the bottom of the shriveled up egg was hard, I looked further around the bottom and sides and there was a full grown baby dragon in there. I thought immediately, oh crap. There is a baby in there and I may have just killed it I put it back into the incubator and I have checked on it everyday. The yolk inside still looks moist but the baby is not moving at all. Did I kill it? The other 4 eggs look the same (minus the nosy tear in the shell) but still no babies have errupted. Every day it seems more and more of the eggs are beginning to sweat, leak fluid and then completely deflate. Are all of my babies dying? Please help me. Me and my kids will be devasted if poor Slim died for no reason

 

[Jayson745]

oh no. Got any pictures you could post? Are you sure the color isn't just dirt stuck to them? If the female is left to cover the eggs after they lay them, they can sometimes kick them around so much that they actually look brown if she laid them in something brown like dirt. I've bred plenty of dragons without issue, but last winter I went to florida for a month and had a neighbor babysit. This bonehead listened to none of my instructions and fed them the wrong kind of greens even though I wrote everything out for him. I dont remember what it was, but I googled it and it said it binds to calcium keeping the dragon from processing calcium. I thought she was done laying when I left, but she had one more clutch on the way, and unfortunately this lack of calcium led to horrible results. The eggs shells were thin leaving the eggs much squishier than they should have been. As they grew, they developed almost clear areas, and these areas grew as the eggs stretched. It was weird, but the thin walls also stretched much easier than they should have leading me to grow eggs about double the normal size. When the babies pierced the eggs to emerge, the eggs simply collapsed on the babies like a circus tent falling on a person. They couldn't find their way out and most died because of this. If you can get pictures, try to put a quarter, or dollar or something familiar in the picture so I can get a reference to their size. Does the mom get calcium supplement, and have a uvb light? Those requirements are no joke, and 100% necessary, which is multiplied many times over when they are breeders producing eggs. The one thing that has me thinking this might be something completely different, is the fact that there was a yolk in the one you opened. They wouldn't likely be trying to emerge if their yolk isn't gone yet. Although if the eggs were thin enough, I wouldn't be suprized if they are springing leaks as the walls grow to thin. Are they getting clear areas on the eggs?
I'm sorry I'm just drawing at straws here. Wish i could help more.
a couple more quick things to mention. If you're picking the eggs up out of the container to candle them, stop doing that. If you can see without picking the eggs up individually, thats fine, but you dont want to be moving them around after the first day or so they are laid. 2ndly, horney male beardies dont need company. If your housing the pairs together, its going to be much worse long term for the females in that situation, than it was for a male to chill by himself.
I hope at least one of them hatches out healthy for you guys

 

[Jayson745]

The more I think about this, the more I think something unknown is going on. If they sweat, they are usually trying to hatch. But they wouldn't normally do that with yolks still. Then there is also the distance between the first one deflating and today. I dont have babies hatching a week apart. They usually all come out with in a couple of days of each other. Sadly there may not be much you can do. I'm going to private message you, which you will be able to see twards the top of the page where it says User Control Panel (1 new message)

 

[beardiemommy0146]

Thank you very much for your reply. When she first laid the eggs, they were very white and small. After 2 days they turned a yellowy brown color and stayed that color the whole time. It is day 73 now and almost all of my eggs are beginning to deflate. Leaking egg goo. I'm very worried. Your theory on the walls being too thin may have some legitamacy as the eggs are VERY big (5 x the size they were when they were laid). I don't know how to post pictures on here as this is the first time I have ever blogged about anything or asked for help on a forum. I checked in on the one egg that I pierced last night and the bottom of the egg was beginning to mold, so I figured if this baby has a chance at all, I will need to take him/her out of the egg, so I gently removed the shell from around the baby and there was still a yolk attached to its belly, but it was a full grown little baby. I tried to see if it was moving or breathing at all and it seemed lifeless to me, however the yolk is still moist and seems to be alive. The kids and my boyfriend were with me and they all said they could see the baby breathing very shallowly so I put him back in the incubator hoping that he won't die and may actually live without its shell. There were 3 other eggs that had completely deflated and were like that for 5 or 6 days now. We decided to carefully open them up aswell and one of the eggs had this red meaty looking stuff inside and a very small mutilated looking partial dragon inside of it. The other 2 were the same with the red meaty stuff and partial babies inside. These ones are not going to live nor would they have. At the moment I have 4 other eggs sweating and collapsing onto the babies. I don't know what to do. Should I rescue them from their eggs before they are suffocated or just leave them be and see what happens? It is day 72 now, they should be fully developed if they are going to hatch by now shouldn't they? It seems like I am loosing my entire clutch here and I'm freaking out. This being my first batch of babies. The mother died 2 days after she had her second clutch of 16 eggs. Only one of those eggs made it. She was receiving calcium with her feedings and there is a big UVB light in their enclosure. My mistake though was leaving their feedings up to my kids and not researching more before I housed the two of them together. This was a fatal error on my part as I don't think the kids were giving her as much calcium as she was supposed to be getting and I think thats why she died I feel terrible and very guilty. We loved her very much. She was a very curious and dominant beardie. She had the BEST personality and our ignorance killed her. Trying not to be too hard on ourselves but we need at least one of these babies to survive. What should I do? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Jayson745]

Thats a tuff one. If its completely formed, you may be able to cut them like the ball python breeders do. Heres a link to a video of that being done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdUadMvHi14

The ones that aren't formed completely will not survive this, but they are probably not going to make it no matter what you do. It'd be nice if you could see which ones were completely grown as they might be able to be saved. Thats a personal call really. I wouldn't want to advise cutting and have it not work. On the other hand, without it, what will happen? I don't think there is a right answer to this, and hope it works out for at least one baby what ever you decide. Please let me know if any make it though. I know you came to the site because of this crappy situation, but you should stick around. Its a good site with lots of good information, and cool people.

 

[Jayson745]

healthy beardie eggs grow a lot as well. More than you'd think. Which is why a pic woulda been good. But really, its not going to make a big difference at this point. 5X seems like a lot. Its probably the same thing that happened to me, maybe with some other incubation factor on top of that screwing with their overall growth inside the big eggs. But thats all speculation, which is all we have.
I dont think going light on the calcium would be enough to cause it if the bulbs are good, but I'm not sure. Uvb bulbs do stop throwing uv after a while even if the light still turns on and looks normal and should be replaced every 6 months or so if you have the long tube kind, and they need to be able to get close to the bulbs (like within a foot of it) . Also, uva and uvb are 2 different things, so the bulb need to have both. Also, there are quite a few foods that bind to calcium besides the one that got my eggs screwed up, so feeding random foods is another thing to be careful of. I know your not worrying about all that at this moment, but just throwing it out there.

 

[beardiemommy0146]

Thank you soo much for all of your suggestions. I am going to go home tonight after work and take another look at them and see if there is anything I can do at all. I am also going to replace my uvb bulbs as I bought the enclosure from a guy 6 months ago and have no idea when he had changed the lights last. Yikes, my beardies may all be deficient. Any other thoughts are welcome. I will message you and let you know how things go tomorrow. Thank you again.

 

[Jayson745]

Sounds good. There are some "uv" bulbs that are horrible, and basically just lie about what they emit. Even worse are some of the "full spectrum" bulbs. Some companies use the term so loosely that it means nothing. I dont know how its not illegal. Most of us use reptisun 10.0 bulbs, sense they have years of quality backing up their product. They are a little costly, but when you set it up, you can do so KNOWING its going to work the way its suppose to. So thats what I use, and suggest.