Help with a gravid beardie.

[ReptarAndChomper11]

I believe one of my female bearded dragons could be gravid. She is digging a lot and not eating. Her body seems wider than usual and when I rubbed her belly, there seems to be eggs in her. I'm just not sure of what I should be doing at this point. I made her a little laying box but I'm looking for other ideas for laying boxes because it's not very deep. She is currently housed with another female (her sister) so I am not sure if I should put her by herself or not. I was wondering how long the process is. I noticed her digging a lot two days ago. Any ideas on what I should do now? :idea:

 

[OnTheGround]

It sounds like she's gravid and ready to lay.

I'm assuming these are infertile, if they are fertile and you plan to incubate them then I'd recommend some minor differences from these instructions.

Buy a large, solid-sided (Not clear), 20-gallon rubbermaid-style container (you can get them at bog box stores like Target or Wal-Mart). Fill it about halfway with Vermiculite or Potting Soil (No potting soil if they are fertile) and pour a sufficent amount of warm/hot water into the tub to just make the substrate keep its shape when you ball it up (Warm is better for the dragon if she's going straight into the bin when it's ready, keeps her body temperature from dropping too much). Pack it down, creating a small hill on one side and valley on the other (So she has a "variety" of places to dig), then place her into it. I clamp one of the heat lamps to the side of the bin to help keep her warm; laying eggs is very tiring business, and for a cold blooded animal a lack of heat makes it that much worse.

When you place her into the bin she should start to dig around almost instantly, eventually settling on one location and building a small cave for herself (If the substrate is damp enough and packed well enough). Once she's satisfied with the hole she'll back into it and start wiggling her hips to move the eggs down to her port so she can push them out. Once she's done laying she'll back fill the hole, pushing the substrate in with her legs and compacting it with her nose. Don't remove her from the lay bin until she's done laying and burying (Mine makes the ground perfectly flat) unless she seems to be in dire medical straits, if you remove them before they're done they can become stressed (Similarily, don't let her see you remove the eggs from the bin later, do that in a separate room).

When she's done burying the eggs she'll likely fall asleep or begin trying to escape from the lay bin, at that time take her out, bathe her, and place her back into her cage under the heat lamp with a bowl of greens and some nice dusted live feeders (Crickets, worms, whatever). She might not eat right awayas she recovers her strength but she will soon start needing to replenish her body. Once her appetite comes back in earnest you should feed one or two Pinkies; they are high in Calcium and fat, both of which are depleted by the egg-making process. Once you've pampered her a little then you can go harvest the eggs. Keep track of where she lays them in the bin and dig down to them, getting more careful the closer you get (The first clutch I had one egg situated much higher than I expected to find it, as I dug it up it went flying across the bin). If you don't plan to incubate them then freeze them before discarding them, to prevent any accidental hatchings.

My girl literally was finishing up laying her second clutch as you typed this, she spent about seven hours in the laybox.

12:30 - I put her in the box
12:45 - She had dug a trench about the size of her body
1:15 - She had a cave she could fit about half her body into
1:55 - She had backed into the cave and begun wiggling her hips
3:10 - WE HAVE EGGS!
4:20 - She began burying the cave
6:00 - Still burying (the ground was flat but she was still packing it down)
I left the house from 6:00 to 7:15 to get dinner with my brother
7:15 - I walk into the house and find her trying to jump out of the lay box.
7:20 - Bath time! I used the mister (spray bottle) to clear vermiculite from her eyes and body

I'll see if I can add some pictures to demonstrate. (EDIT: Added links)

 

[OnTheGround]

Aditionally, some people will jump on you for housing them together, but my two females (also sisters) were housed together when this girl was gravid with the first clutch and the only problem I noticed was at one point the non-gravid female walked over the gravid female, which caused the gravid female to whip her head around and hiss at her sister.

A few weeks after laying the two girls got into a whiz-bang fight (despite several months of peaceful cohabitation) in which I caught the sister who hadn't laid eggs biting at and trying to tear her sister's tail off while the sister was clawing at her eyes. I've now separated them.

When she's in her lay box keep her separate from her sister and try to disturb her as little as possible.

 

[ReptarAndChomper11]

Thank you for your reply! I'm not exactly sure if they are fertile or not. I give my beardies some time to run around outside of their enclosure and I have a male that is about the same age as they are that hangs out with them but didn't show any signs of trying to mate until recently when I saw him grabbing them by the side of their face but I moved him shortly after I saw that. I have a laying box set up for her that I plan to put her in tonight but I have "eco earth" in there is that okay for fertile eggs? I also work tonight from 5-9 so should I keep her in while I work or take her out before? This is my first time doing any of this, though my boyfriend has gone through this once before when he was a little younger. I have an incubator and I guess it will be okay to set that up the day of? I'm sorry if I really don't seem to know much about this but this is the one area of reptiles I am not sure of and I really don't want to mess it up. :dontknow:

 

[OnTheGround]

Ultimately anything she can dig is fine, I just prefer to stay away things with chemicals such as fertilizer in it for fear it might cause harm to the eggs. Not sure what Eco-Earth is so I'll let you make that judgement call.

When mine laid her first clutch I was working a 2p-10p shift and I left her in there no problem, just need to turn her light on for an hour or two after you get home and bathe her so she doesn't get chilled overnight.

It sounds like she's ready to lay NOW, so set the incubator up ASAP (83 degrees farenheight, around 70%-80% humidity) so you can make sure the temperature and humidity are stable when you go to place the eggs in. I put the eggs into a "Ziploc L Rectangle" 76oz container which I disinfected, filled 2 inches deep with damp Vermiculite, and placed into the incubator overnight to judge the temperatures and warm the vermiculite. I cut small holes along the top middle of each wall for ventilation.