No eggs.?

[acidburn01]

Nova is 13 months as of the 25th but hasn't laid any eggs. Like five months ago, we brought her to the vet because she just stopped eating basically everything and was super dark all the time and was still gaining weight and they did an X-ray and said it looked like egg follicles were forming and she'd prolly lay eggs in the next six weeks. Only it never happened.

Her eating has gotten better in the aspect I can get her to eat six or seven superworms and a few bites of salad on a good day, bad day is only one or two, worse day is nothing at all. And she's still slowly gaining. She's maybe 19 inches and over 700 grams and climbing. I feel her belly everyday and don't feel any eggs, shouldn't she have laid her first infertile clutch by now.? I am stressing it because I feel like she doesn't have enough calcium reserves now, since she's slowed way down on eating.(she's not a huge fan of calcium powder, flavored or normal but she'll tolerate it a bit) when do they typically start laying eggs.? She does have a sand box she goes into everyday but she doesn't dig anymore. When she first got it, she would just dig for hours and now, she just gets in it to lay down.

Here is a picture of her for reference to when I say she is a chonky gorl. She's in a 4x2x2 tank with a 100w thrive heatbulb and an Arcadia 10.0 t5 bulb. I give her kale, collards, turnips, mustard greens, blueberries, superworms, hornworms and silkworms. She just won't eat anything else.

 

[xp29]

Most females won't lay till 2 1/2to 3 years old. And as far as i understand infertile eggs are hard to feel also

 

[acidburn01]

Most females won't lay till 2 1/2to 3 years old. And as far as i understand infertile eggs are hard to feel also

Is it normal for them to start egg follicles this early and then they get reabsorbed like it seems hers did.?

 

[AHBD]

She is a little young but it's not really uncommon for them to lay eggs by 14-16 months and even younger. She is very overweight though. Has she been on a diet of mostly superworms ? Those are fatty and will cause obesity if fed in large amounts. She may not feel well due to the excess weight but it's fine to cut her insects way back, only 1-2 X a week in small amounts but veggies can be offered daily, mostly greens like kale, turnip, mustard, collards, arugala, also squash, green beans, maybe a few blueberries or raspberries.

Can you post a pic of the xrays to show if the follicles were really there or if there might be something else going on ?

 

[acidburn01]

She is a little young but it's not really uncommon for them to lay eggs by 14-16 months and even younger. She is very overweight though. Has she been on a diet of mostly superworms ? Those are fatty and will cause obesity if fed in large amounts. She may not feel well due to the excess weight but it's fine to cut her insects way back, only 1-2 X a week in small amounts but veggies can be offered daily, mostly greens like kale, turnip, mustard, collards, arugala, also squash, green beans, maybe a few blueberries or raspberries.

Can you post a pic of the xrays to show if the follicles were really there or if there might be something else going on ?

We got her a little chunky and she hardly eats. On a good day, she will eat four or five superworms but it's not everyday, there are times where she won't eat for two days in a row, sometimes three. It just came out of nowhere one day. She used to eat anything then decided she was afraid of crickets and then decided she didn't want roaches anymore. Around that same time, she got dark and streaked, like something was bothering her and stayed that way for awhile, despite everything else being fine. And that's when we took her to the vet, back in April or something, and they said it looked like follicles. But awhile after, she started eating but only eats a couple super/silkworms a few times a week. But is still slowly gaining anyway. She's over 700 and the little that she does eat doesn't match up with how she is gaining. She does eats a few bites of her salad everyday (kale, collards, turnips, mustards). Sometimes half of it, sometimes a few bites but she eats them everyday. She is relatively active, loves running around the house and the bed and jumping on stuff and has no mobility issues. Her temps are normal and she acts like a typical beardie. Here is her last x-ray, where they said they saw the start of follicles. She has another appointment on the 23rd and I think they're doing another X-ray then. They said the little blurry spots by the base of her tail were supposedly the start of the follicles.

 

[AHBD]

I don't see anything that definitively looks like follicles. Are you sure of her age, you said you that when you got her she was already this size ? It is hard for them to lose once they're overweight but it can be done.

 

[acidburn01]

I don't see anything that definitively looks like follicles. Are you sure of her age, you said you that when you got her she was already this size ? It is hard for them to lose once they're overweight but it can be done.

She wasn't this big, we got her when she was 4 months and she was still a little rounder, but not by much, she was 109g when we got her, I believe. Which isn't much, but her belly was a bit round. Her breeder said she would give a salad and a bowl of superworms but knew she was prolly too young for them then so we tried crickets and roaches and she would eat a ton and just ate really well for several months, up until about a month before this x-ray.

This was the day after we got her, and the photo of her smiling into the camera was less than a month later. I was feeding her crickets, dubias, and the occasional treat but she would eat three ish times a day for a few minutes each time, easily 30 roaches each feeding. We thought something was wrong with her, a tumor or something but the vet had said shes otherwise healthy.

 

[AHBD]

Beautiful pic of her friendly little beardie face.
So yeah the info that people are following is not correct but has saturated the internet, that beardies need to eat as much as they want 3 X a day until they are a year or older. That leads to some very overweight dragons at times. The belief that they can't become overweight at a young age is false, just like human kids/teens can over eat. No dragon ever needs 70-90 insects a day. But since she's young you can help her to keep active and just feed her a small number of insects 2-3 X a week and hopefully she can lose a bit over time.

 

[acidburn01]

Beautiful pic of her friendly little beardie face.
So yeah the info that people are following is not correct but has saturated the internet, that beardies need to eat as much as they want 3 X a day until they are a year or older. That leads to some very overweight dragons at times. The belief that they can't become overweight at a young age is false, just like human kids/teens can over eat. No dragon ever needs 70-90 insects a day. But since she's young you can help her to keep active and just feed her a small number of insects 2-3 X a week and hopefully she can lose a bit over time.

She's relatively active, the most active one we have. My 14 month old boy Toothless will lay in his bed easily until noon or later just looking down on us peasants with judgement from his hammock.

So, she will eat at most, six superworms a day every couple days and in between that, it's either nothing or only two at most. Should that be cut to even less.? Like, Monday she will eat six worms, Tuesday, nothing, Wednesday maybe one or two, Wednesday nothing Thursday another two, etc. It makes me feel like I'm making her to hungry or something if I cut back her food even less. I dont know why she turned away everything else, she didn't get superworms often enough for it to be s problem to begin with

 

[AHBD]

It's good that she's so active ! That feeding schedule is reasonable, as you do that you can introduce the other insects in on alternate days to see if you can get her interest back in them. She won't starve with the minimal feeding and if she was really truly hungry she would eat crickets or dubias.

 

[acidburn01]

It's good that she's so active ! That feeding schedule is reasonable, as you do that you can introduce the other insects in on alternate days to see if you can get her interest back in them. She won't starve with the minimal feeding and if she was really truly hungry she would eat crickets or dubias.

That's what we figured but she just won't. She backs away wide-eyed whenever I offer crickets, I'm not sure why.

But we'll have to keep trying. I'm worried her weight gain is health related or something, it's been steady lately and doesn't correlate with the little bit she's eating.

 

[AHBD]

It takes a while for the trend to turn around when they have been putting on weight .

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

She is looking really great there! It is hard to tell on the x-rays but with females, it is always possible
they can develop follicles/eggs.
It sounds like she is eating well & once her system gets used to less insects she will most likely lose
a little more. They do have slower metabolisms. She is beautiful!

Tracie