Beardie Eggs / No Substrate Method

[JDouglas]

Has anyone ever used the "no substrate" method of incubation for bearded dragon eggs? A friend's beardie layed 26 eggs and he has given me three eggs to incubate in my no substrate incubator.

Jaremy

[JDouglas]

Update - Well the eggs are doing well so far. I will keep you posted. I can't find anyone or any info on who has done it this way before. Maybe I will be one of the first? We will see. For the last week the incubator has ket them at 83.7-84.2F and the container is 100% sealed. I will open it once in awhile to let fresh air in. It is a very large egg chamber(the same I used for carpet eggs).
My friend with the remaining 23 eggs has never dealt with eggs before. He is following the directions from the Bearded Dragon Manual. The eggs are in a couple inches of damp vermiculite with no lid. I have done all I can to help him. After seeing his set up it was apparent that his water bowl for humidity was much too small and I had him check his substrate. Sure enough it was already dry and the eggs looked like they were drying up. Unfortunately he misted them with water without talking to me first. He should have added water around the edges and between the eggs not directly to the eggs. Hopefully he didn't suffocate them or shock them with a big temp drop. Now he has put a cake pan of water at the bottom and has added a lid that has a few holes. We will have to wait and see if there are any survivors.


Thanks,

Jaremy

[JDouglas]

One of the eggs began to mold and shrivel. It had no visible veins when candled so I discarded it. Another egg has grown almost double in size and has awesome veins when candled. I am confident it will hatch. The third egg looks exactly the same as when I received it.

This is not a good test for this incubator because the eggs were messed with too much before I received them. First they were dug up, then layed willy nilly in vermiculite, then incubated at unsteady temps for two days, then they were dug up again and transported 15 miles. When at my house my toddler nephew who is into everything accidentally kicked the container of eggs as I was getting them ready to be placed in the incubator. When put into the incubator one side of the egg already appeared dry and yellow and the side that was in the vermiculite was nice and white. So you see, even if one egg makes it for me it will be a miracle!

[concept3]

lol yeah Complete miracle that little guy would have quite the story to tell before he even hatched

[JDouglas]

I agree and I am very confident it will hatch. It looks great and there are only a few weeks left! I may even keep him for myself and name him Lucky. LOL

[JDouglas]

Well the Bearded Dragon egg is doing great. It is full, firm, and white. It is over halfway through its incubation time.

Sadly my friend who gave me these three eggs was very unsuccessful at incubating eggs and the rest of this clutch of eggs has dried up and decayed. It was a great learning experience for him and next time he will be more prepared.

[JDouglas]

OK I finally took a pic of the two remaining eggs in the egg chamber. Sorry for the glare I didn't want to remove the glass lid. As you can see the egg on the left is much smaller. Both eggs started about that size. Don't you think the egg on the right looks great? :)

http://showcase.netins.net/web/reptiless/stuff/beardieegg.jpg

It may be early to say this but I think the no substrate method may be a great way to incubate beardie eggs because this egg has overcome many obstacles and still looks great.

If the egg hatches I think I will name him/her Lucky, as in Lucky to be alive.:D

[Brent Strande]

That'd be a pretty sweet story! I'll be interested in seeing any pics of when he/she hatches!

[JDouglas]

Thanks Brent. I will definitely post a few pics here when and if it hatches. From what I read the egg will dent and sweat a bit before hatching.

[Will]

I am contemplating trying the no substrate method with a clutch of king eggs this year. I used vermiculite/perlite & spagnum last year and it worked well for me, but though I'd give this a try with one clutch this year.

What do you have underneath, depth-wise...?

No wories of an animal getting into the water and drowning before you see it...? Maybe not a BD, but a small snake could get through the grate.

What about water dripping on the eggs, and the growth of moulds...? That's why I liked the spagnum, it absorbed any water, and kept away the moulds...

[JDouglas]

I have incubated 6 clutches of Fox Snake eggs and one clutch of carpet python eggs in this set up and have never seen or smelled mold or mildew. For snakes I use 4 sheets of egg crate stacked up so that snakes can't get under the crate and into the water to drown. I fill the water up to the third crate. After the first egg is pipped I remove the water and replace the crate with damp paper towels and set the eggs on it. I also make my egg chamber slightly unlevel so water drops can roll to the edge and down the sides. For Fox eggs the egg chamber was set on a shelf in my boa room that is heated to 82F. Condensation and drops occur from the glass being cooler. Temps in my cooler incubator are much more even and as you can see from the beardie egg pics there are fewer drops. My new incubator(thanks Stockwell) has a fan to circulate air and temps are even so their is no condensation at all on the glass.


Here are a few pics of Fox Snake eggs in no substrate...

http://showcase.netins.net/web/reptiless/stuff/eggs.JPG

and here they are after they began to pip and were placed on damp paper towel. Nice white clean eggs...

http://showcase.netins.net/web/reptiless/stuff/pipping.JPG


and here was the result...
http://showcase.netins.net/web/reptiless/stuff/babies.JPG

It worked great and I will never go back to substrate.

[Stockwell]

The no substrate method works great, but drownings are possible and for that reason, I still use vermiculite under the grate. This eliminates the problem of standing water sloshing when the tray is pulled out, and also prevents drownings. You simply soak the vermiculite.. the exact water content is unimportant but it can be completely saturated since the eggs aren't actually touching it.
Jaremy, if you were away when your eggs hatched, and especially with lizards, you might have had a problem with any hatchlings that got under the grid and ended up in the water. It's not everyone that will catch eggs at the point of pipping and then remove them..
I have a friend that hatch Leo eggs above water, and they all hatched 100% and all drowned when he was away for the weekend.. Now that would be quite upsetting and unnecessary.

[JDouglas]

I agree that drowning would be horrible and is possible if just one crate is suspended over water. Again, for snakes I use 4 sheets of egg crate stacked up so that snakes can't get under the crate and into the water to drown. I fill the water up to the third crate.

I do have the beardie egg suspened over water with just one crate. I didn't think a Beardie would be able to fit through the holes and the crate is cut as close as it can be to an exact fit in the tub. I will also be watching it closely.

I also like the idea of placing egg crate over the substrate so the eggs rest over it:)

[JDouglas]

I was away over the weekend and found that my beardie egg had hatched! I was so happy and excited I felt like a kid at Christmas! I turned on the light and saw that the egg was all sunken and then saw Lucky staring up at me!

Here is a pic of her next to her egg. She hatched somewhere between 62-64 days...
http://showcase.netins.net/web/reptiless/stuff/lucky.jpg

She has a nice banded pattern and is really engergetic. Her speed surprised me when she scampered across the cage.
http://showcase.netins.net/web/reptiless/stuff/lucky2.jpg