My new darlings!!

[TribalGecko]

Hi there,
I have been wanting a pair of beardies for a long time and finally got them! Meet Popeye and Olive Oyl!http://images.andale.com/f2/113/110/6962062/1057208319174_beardies.jpg

hope the picture works

[Zoe]

hey! the picture will work if you take out the spaces before and after the url :)

[Dragon_Slave]

VERY AWESOME DRAGONS! Cute names too! ;)

[TribalGecko]

Thanx! When I first put them in the cage and put some crickets in, she started to chow down and Popeye jumped on her, grabbed her by the jowls and I thought they were fighting....now I know better :p

[SerpentLust]

hehe here:

http://images.andale.com/f2/113/110...74_beardies.jpg

That should work...

Jenn

[reptilez]

They have very nice colours to them:D
Good luck with 'em, They will have some great babies:D
-Reptilez
(Is the female on top of the male in that photo?)

[TribalGecko]

Yeah, thats the female on top but not for long! Popeye has asserted himself and claimed the best basking spot in the tank.

[eyespy]

Very pretty dragons! Watch out for that Popeye and make sure Olive Oyl gets fair basking time too so her health doesn't suffer.

Sometimes it's good to set up 2 good basking sites but even then a dominant dragon will sometimes chase the subordinate away from both.

[Dragon_Slave]

Good Advice from Eyespy! :D

They are truely some amazing creatures and I wish you the best of luck with them!

[TribalGecko]

The way I have the tank set up, there is a superior basking rock ledge with an subordinate ledge right underneath. She usually hangs out there. There is not much activity going on, I am wondering if I have a hot enough light on them. The thermometer reads 90 degrees at the hottest point but I read that they like it around 100 at the hottest. I have a blue tongue skink cage underneath the rack and they also have a heat source so heat is also rising up from that cage too. I didn't want it to be too hot. Either end of the tank is cool though.

[drewlowe]

very nice beardies. good luck with breeding them.

[TribalGecko]

Oh my!!! I am totally freaking out! My "babies" are going to parents! I didn't think I felt any eggs in Olive Oyl but this morning she is digging like crazy, trying to make a burrow in the sand. We are having a emergency! I sent the boyfriend out to get sand and soil so she can make her nest. I had to take all the rocks out of her cage because she wouldn't stop digging and I was afraid she would dig under the rocks and crush herself. This is a first for me. Thank goodness we have a incubator running with some other stuff in it. I am sooooo excited! Any advice for this newbie???

[eyespy]

Just try to relax and enjoy it, TribalGecko! Get the eggs into the incubator soon after they are laid so they won't dehydrate and then the waiting begins.... :-D

[TribalGecko]

Wow, it was really neat. We put her in a huge bucket with the substrate and she went right to work. She even used the little burrow we started for her. It took her about 20 minutes from start to finish and the male came over by the corner of the tank to watch her. Then she sat by the corner of the tank and watched us dig them up. I hope she wasn't upset by that. She laid 22 eggs which seems like alot to me. About six of the eggs were really small or dented. Are those "bad" eggs? I have only had her around a week and I don't think she was conditioned for egg laying before I had her. I tried to give her the best diet to get her into shape but it wasn't very long. Does she need anything special right now to help her recover?

[geckoguy157]

nice dragons they look great and healthy

[TribalGecko]

Thanx! We have quite a family of reptiles now. Other-half just came home with a baby frilled dragon. What a cutie he is!

[eyespy]

22 is a good sized clutch for a first time! I believe something like 68 or 69 eggs is the current record but that was a German Giant who had laid clutches for several years. Normally the first few clutches are smaller and as the female's hormones hit their peaks the clutch size gradually increases over the next few years.

The best thing to help her recover is to keep her well hydrated and feed her a nice varied diet with lots of calcium-rich greens and a little more protein than she normally gets. Unless she's very skinny and having a hard time gaining back her pre-clutch weight there's no need to powerfeed, that can actually cause liver disease.

The eggs that are small and dented might just be a bit dehydrated, I never give up on an egg unless it molds or turns brown. Sometimes even the smallest and most dented eggs will plump right up in the incubator and hatch out a healthy baby. It's a good idea to keep those eggs in a separate deli cup so that if they are indeed bad and begin to decay the nasty bacteria won't affect the rest of the clutch.