Hi all. Can anyone help? I have a two year old (approx) lady bearded dragon who laid her first clutch of eggs in February (around 15 eggs) she then laid another clutch 3 weeks later (32 that time), another clutch 3 weeks after that (36) and she is now clearly getting ready for another set. In the week before laying the eggs she doesn't eat and then she's ravenous afterwards so I feed up her as much as I can but then a couple of weeks later she starts again. I've read that mating her and allowing her to have a fertilised clutch of eggs may help to reduce the frequency with which she lays eggs and may even stop it altogether. Any thoughts, advice or experience would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
No, mating will not stop the frequency. The females that I bred all layed between 20-39 eggs per clutch, as many as 5-8 clutches [ I think one of my big girls even layed 9 clutches one season ] and fertile eggs can actually be bigger. Just keep feeding her well, keep up her calcium supplements + proper uvb and she should be fine. Egg binding can happen in mated or unmated dragons but that DOES seem to be just a bit more common in unmated dragons.
Dragons vary to extreme degrees with egg laying. Some may lay infertile just before a year old. Others never lay. Some unmated dragons lay their first infertile eggs at 7,8,9 years old. Dragons that are bred will almost always lay eggs though.
Thank you, I'll keep an eye out. My 40 gallon Zilla enclosure doesn't have a dig box due to lack of space at the moment. But hopefully that won't become an issue before I can put one in there.