beardie egg question

[nagini-baby]

hi all

this is our first season breeding beardies and i noticed yesterday one of the eggs is getting like a foamy substance on it but otherwise looks ok.. all the others are normal.

should i keep it or chuck it? also what could it be?

they will have been incubating for 5 weeks on friday.

cheers

 

[slacker]

Without any photos, I'd suggest mould, which is usually caused by having too much moisture in the substrate.

By the way, do you have any photographs of the parents of these eggs?

EDIT: And I'd keep the eggs unless they start to smell dead (you'll know it if they are).

 

[Brettix]

Never heard of foamy stuff ?,try wiping it softly with a tissue.
If it is yellow or has green or black dots or growing fur i chuckem.

 

[nagini-baby]

ill see if i can get some piccys of both pairs today but i always have trouble adding pics to the threads...

 

[nagini-baby]

sorry for the huge photos i cant resize them this is the mum


the dad he had a busted tail when i got hm... all good now though


these pics are from when i first got them dad is orange mum is yellow i also have another pair that im trying to get pics for.

 

[nagini-baby]

these are the parents of our second clutch mum on left dad on right the pics dont do their colour justice beautiful red colour.


the other parents i put up in last update are parents to clutch 1 and 3

 

[slacker]

Thanks

A few questions, assuming you're not using the no-substrate method of incubation:

What substrate are you using?
Did you bake it prior to hydrating it to remove any water already in the substrate?
What ratio of water to substrate did you use?
How did you measure the water/substrate to ensure you got the ratio you were aiming for?

In our first clutches (python eggs), we had problems with fungus/mould due to excessive moisture, even when we used the commonly suggested 1:1 ratio. The next season we used a mixture of perlite & vermiculite (3 parts) and water (2 parts). We then added a layer of completely dry perlite, and sat the eggs on that. Using this method we had no mould problems. I'm not suggesting any such ratio for beardie eggs though, as I've not bred them before and I've done no research into the incubation of their eggs ;-)

Having said all of this, if it is mould, I would strongly advise you to mix up a new, drier batch of your substrate, placing it into new tubs, and then move the unaffected eggs into it, being careful not to rotate them (mark them with a pencil before moving them).

It's always better to err on the side of a drier substrate, in my (limited) experience, as you can always add more water, but it's a lot more difficult to fix it when there's too much and the eggs have gone mouldy.

 

[JAS101]

pics of the egg/s in question would be good

 

[Chicken]

i did a mix of 1:1 ratio of water mixed with vermiculite for my beardie eggs and the vermiculite seemed really dry still so i did a 1:2 ratio so say there was 40 grams of vermiculite in the container i'd mix in 80 grams of water. And i gave it a bit of a spray. And i'm about 2 weeks into incubation and i'm worrying because what i read on this thread. There doing fine though. I remember last time i just added a random amount of water in and they went mouldy lol :/ My humidity is 83%.

 

[nagini-baby]

i just wet the vermiculite so it was damp and not wet i am shocking at maths and dont own scales to weigh the quantities. all the others look perfectly fine just one funny one

 

[mike72]

1:2 is WAY too much water. This is probably will cause mold, you may even risk drowning the eggs. I highly recommend you mix up a new batch of substrate using the 1:1 ratio.

Bearded dragon eggs do not need much moisture at all. I have even had success using lower levels of water (eg. 1:0.75). If the egg is displaying mold and you know the substrate is not too wet, it may be dead. What i recommend you do is separate it from the other eggs by incubating it in a different container, this way if it is alive it still has a chance of hatching and if it is dead it won't be able to infect the other eggs.

 

[Sel]

I mixed some up today and was worried i didnt have enough water.. now im happy how i did it. The scales were not very good, so kind of had to guess with the weight, it wasnt too wet.. just damp enough that when i squeezed a handful, it clumped.
First day of incubation...fingers crossed!
Good luck with yours nagini baby.

 

[nagini-baby]

cheers. if its too wet wouldn it be easier to just take the lid of and let some moisture evaporate ?

 

[Chicken]

hey mike, yeah the vermiculite is really light and it didn't look like enough. When i did it i got the same weight in water as the vermiculite was and started slowly pouring the water over the vermiculite and it ran out when the vermiculite was half covered, and it was only really lightly covered. Ill redo the mix tomorrow, should tip the water (that i weighed to the right amount) into a spray bottle and mist it over until it runs out so the water is evenly spread over the top of the vermiculite?

 

[nagini-baby]

ok the vermiculite was a little to wet so i removed the lids for a little while to let the excess evaporate but kept the humidity up within the incubator. and now two of my eggs are drooping... so what the heck do i do now? they have been cooking for 38 days so its to early for them to start hatching isnt it?

 

[nagini-baby]

just brought digital scales off ebay should be able to measure mix correctly from now on..

 

[JAS101]

ok the vermiculite was a little to wet so i removed the lids for a little while to let the excess evaporate but kept the humidity up within the incubator. and now two of my eggs are drooping... so what the heck do i do now? they have been cooking for 38 days so its to early for them to start hatching isnt it?

yeah 38 days is a bit early , i did read in the bearded dragon manual that its any where from 55 to 75 days .