Female Veiled Dropping Eggs

cutebutevil

New Member
I'll start with the basics, 175 gal. reptarium. 160watt mercury vapor bulbs x2 , plenty of trees and vines all sizes for growing feet, she's 1 1/2 yrs. and on her fourth clutch laid 12/23. She is a veiled named Serenity and I've never had a problem with her. Her urates are pure white and fecal droppings are as they should be. She is misted and fed a wide variety from hornworms to silkies to giant mealworms and superworms, butterworms and waxworms are used also. I stopped using crickets because the worms are much easier to keep. Her clutches have been large 68,72,91 and 66 actually laid this time. I've restricted her eating to try to prevent further large clutches.
Now onto my problem. As I said she laid 66 eggs on 12/23 she was mated so they should be fertile except that she's dropped over 20 eggs since she laid the 66. Some by themselves some when she goes to the bathroom. She laid much earlier than usual this time. She runns about 100 days between clutches but this one was laid at 87 days. I've left her sand chamber in her cage to encourage laying with no luck. She doesn't seem to be in any distress but I know chams are good at hiding how they fee. She isn't showing any stress coloration and her movements haven't changed. She's eating drinking and pooping just fine. I can still see eggs above her back legs what should I do? Is a vet visit needed? I would post pics but I don't know how!
Thanks for the help
Lisa
 
Howdy Lisa,

Wow, that's a lot of eggs. I've followed threads about slowing down veiled egg production through food and temperature control. Kinyonga has described many successful applications of this method. She's the real expert at it .

Egg dropping has been talked about recently too. A perfectly healthy and equally kept panther dropped eggs all over the enclosure while her sibling, kept they same way, laid eggs in the normal manner. If she has been laying eggs properly in the past and now she isn't but all else is he same, I don't think a vet visit will help much. If she has the proper laying environment available and isn't being overly stressed by people interrupting her egg laying process then there isn't much that I can think of at the moment.

My gut feeling is that she has it too good...:eek:. After laying eggs, she needs to get a short-term feeding regiment to get her back to safe nutrient levels and then cut her back, probably more than you have been doing so far. My adult males get fed every other day the equivalent volume of 2-3 medium/large silks or superworms. That might be around 4-5 crickets. If you are feeding a LOT more than that well after her egg laying is finished then that might be the problem.

Also, that's a lot of UVB :eek:. She might be doing fine with that level (2x MV) of UVB but it is far beyond what the vast majority of successful keepers use. In the long run (panther) research suggests that there may be adverse effects.
 
yea i 100% agree with everything said above. i would limit her food intake and lower the temperature a few degrees. Just subtracting one MVB should be enough and replacing it with a 60 watt household bulb. I would not recomend having 2 160 watt MVB. that is like living on the sun!
 
Thanks everyone I've been so stressed and I feel better now. I'll replace the 1 uvb with regular bulb! Should I be letting her go a day between feedings? I've always fed her everyday seems cruel not to but then again I'd rather have her hungry than dead!!!!!!! I'm the type that likes to spoil the "kids" real and lizard LOL but if it's doing more harm than good I will control myself. Can someone help with posting pics so I can show off my babies? Serenity (female 1 1/2) and Chaos (male 1yr 3months) and two Beardies!!!!!! Oh and two real kids too :D!
 
Thanks everyone I've been so stressed and I feel better now. I'll replace the 1 uvb with regular bulb! Should I be letting her go a day between feedings? I've always fed her everyday seems cruel not to but then again I'd rather have her hungry than dead!!!!!!! I'm the type that likes to spoil the "kids" real and lizard LOL but if it's doing more harm than good I will control myself. Can someone help with posting pics so I can show off my babies? Serenity (female 1 1/2) and Chaos (male 1yr 3months) and two Beardies!!!!!! Oh and two real kids too :D!

For the pictures it's easiest to go to a place like http://www.photobucket.com or http://www.freeimagehosting.net/ and copy and paste the code they give you for forums.
 
In an older post, Tyler Steward said...."It means she was either disturbed while trying to dig, or didn't think the laying site was suitable. You'll be lucky if she gets them all out, they often retain the last one or two which causes major problems."
https://www.chameleonforums.com/dropping-eggs-cage-3317/

Personally, I would worry that she has retained eggs. (I certainly hope she hasn't.) Watch for any signs that she has and get her to the vets ASAP if there is any indication. Some people seem to think that if they leave the egglaying site there they will lay the rest of them...but I'm not sure. From what I have seen, GENERALLY they have a limited time that they would be able to lay the eggs before the can no longer lay them.

Overfeeding can lead to constipation and prolapsing in addition to producing large clutches.

Sorry to put this on you after others have made you feel better. :(
 
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