Breeding

[Hart20009]

Today was a new experience for me. My female panther had finally reached a year old and had been eating great and getting lots of natural sunlight from her 2 hour outings with me in the yard along with the Male panther in a separate area. They had seen each other together however I was cautious about stressing them out to young. Today I decided since we had been keeping them for breeding that I would present my female to the male in his enclosure for a short period and see how things went.

She was very receptive to his courting and they ended up mating for approximately 30 minutes after which I saw them climb to the top of the enclosure in separate areas so I removed her and placed her back into her own enclosure. (I hope I did that at the right time and not to soon).

They both have Dragonstrand enclosures and hers is the breeder one with the solid walls so they cant see each other. I already have her laying bin for her enclosure so here's hoping everything goes ok.

My question is after the eggs are laid I have read so many different ideas on how to incubate them. I was going to incubate them in my stand for the enclosures since it has lower cabinets and the room stays around 74-76 degrees . Do I mist them once a week or ever? also does anyone have any recommendations on how to house the eggs I have seen some cool stuff out there and I am willing to buy what's required.

 

[kinyonga]

To incubate eggs, I use a shoebox sized Tupperware type container with a lid. I fill it half full of slightly moist coarse grained vermiculite. To test the moisture level...take a fist full of the moistened vermiculite...and squeeze it. You should only be able to squeeze out one or two drops of water.make dents with your thumb in the vermiculite about an inch apart in all directions and carefully lay the eggs in them being careful not to rotate/turn the eggs. Put the lid on and place the container in the dark somewhere that the temperature will stay about 74F. The insides of the container should get beads of moisture on them. You shouldn't have to add water but if you do don't mist the eggs or get the water on them.
If you have more questions just ask.

 

[Zephalia]

I use the same container set up as kinyonga.

For incubating, I place the container in my basement in a box (so it's dark) over the summer as I don't have A/C and temps can easily get to 90F on the main floor. Temps range from 75-83F down there. Once the temps cool outside, I move them upstairs to the hall closet where it stays 72F over the winter. In the spring, when it starts to warm up outside, I leave them upstairs where temps range from 72F to 76F and that's about when they start hatching. I always have my females lay between July - September. This is done deliberately so that I have babies over the warm summer months as I raise them predominantly outdoors.

Best of luck and if I can give you a tip, it's this...have food ready for those babies. Fruit flies and pinheads in large numbers. They eat a small fortune.