We're Expecting!

So Moiraine has been acting somewhat silly lately. She spent a lot of time in her water dish the past couple of weeks. On Friday night, I was watching television online and I noticed she seemed rather lumpy. Look under her arm in this picture. (She's on the left.)
Plus, she was running laps in her tank and digging almost nonstop. These are all indicators of gravidity ("gravid" means "full of eggs"). I put my hand under her belly and was pretty sure that I felt little orbs in there. Al called to tell me he was going to the gym after work and I told him he needed to come home and verify my opinion. We ended up hitting Lowes for nesting materials: A sweater box and some vermiculite. (In the picture above, she has been in her vermiculite and there is some on her head.)

She spent the entire night in the box and continued to dig in there all day Saturday (Oct. 11). I vacuumed at about 5:00pm and still no eggs. At about 6:30, I peeked in and she was busy laying!

She laid 21 eggs, but one got squished. We've rigged an incubator and have a real one coming in about a week or so. We were SO not prepared for this!

The eggs should hatch in 55-85 days. We're incubating them at a lower temperature. This takes longer, but the dragons that are hatched have a better disposition.

Just so you know, this shouldn't have happened this quickly. Usually, to get bearded dragons to breed, you need to simulate the changing of the seasons (known as "brumation") by lowering temperatures and reducing light. It is about a 12 week process. Then, their instinct is to breed. We put these two together on the evening of September 22. Females lay their eggs about a month after this event. So, you can tell that they got right down to business!

We don't know how successful we'll be with this clutch. We weren't expecting her to be gravid, so we were feeding her the regular diet. We do keep them pretty well fed, but we should have been giving her more protein and calcium supplements to help the formation of the eggs. This just helps the shells to be stronger and her to recover more quickly. However, it is likely that she'll lay one or two more clutches from this single breeding experience, so we've improved her diet.

So, does anyone want a beared dragon around January/February?

P.S. Jeff and Ashley came over to a Rock Band Pizza Party just after Moiraine emerged from her box. The subject line was his idea.