The other reason is I like to examine the eggs and watch their development- it gives me some idea about how my husbandry is going. It is easier to dig them up and put them in something smaller. If you have hundreds, it is a big problem. If you have only a few lizards, no problem. I have thought about using nest boxes and moving those into an "incubator" in tact which would be fine if they were designed so that I could seal them and control moisture content, but they sure would take up a lot of space unnecessarily, and that space would eventually equal money- I would have to make more space or incubators for incubation or whatever. Moisture content is difficult to control for example, and in my conditions, so is temperature. I can't speak for others, but I dig mine up because I feel uncomfortable about my ability to control conditions of the nest throughout incubation. They don't need as much air as you might think. I've even recieved a few really large lizards this way and was surprised they arrive just fine- big adult tegus and iguanas. The lizards do not suffocate- there is enough air for overnight and longer. That's pretty similar to eggs hatching- there is some space and enough air in there for hatchlings.Īnother thought- anyone who has ever recieved lizards in shipping will understand that most shippers use sealed cardboard boxes with a styrophome cooler liner which is also usually closed without holes for ventilation. If a long needle is pressed through the substrate into the ballon to pop it, the space the ballon filled will leave a cavity in the earth. Also- you can imagine you fill a ballon with air and bury it in a substrate that will hold it's structure. And see comment 3 above for better understanding. And as they hatch and dig out, they have enough from that space.Ĥ Again, captive conditions do not equal wild conditions for the babies. There is some air around the egg mass in nature- between the eggs for example (fill a jar with marbles and you will see. When things hatch and I'm away for the weekend- they are fine even without fresh air in those sealed containers- even for entire clutches of baby bearded dragons. Keeps water content and humidity stable and effortless to manage. It's been about 20 years and I've been using sealed containers for my eggs ever since with great results. "How much fresh air do you think those eggs would get underground?". She thought this was absolutely hilarious. I explained that for my chameleon eggs I was poking holes with a pin in the lid of my containers for some gas exchange. The answer was she was using sealed bottles (maybe baby food jars- I can't remember for sure) throughout incubation. She was using different concentrations of CO2 and O2 in her research, and when she was describing this to me my first question was how she could possibly be controlling the concentration. She was not into the pet thing- was an academic. Years ago I spoke briefly with someone who was at that time one of the world's foremost researchers on lizard incubation at the university where I grew up. Nesting sites are likely easy dig sites, and nests may not be as deep as some artificial nests in captivity.ģ Eggs and baby lizards need less air than you may believe. Wild babies are up to the task, hatch simultaneously rather than over days or weeks like in captivity, and dig out together. BUT natural hatching, nesting and incubation is not the same as artificial. So their expected survival rate from hatching to adulthood is pretty low.Ģ yes. Many species grow to adulthood and reproduce and are dead in less than a year or two. Plus they have a very short expected lifespan and high turnover rate with fresh breeders replacing die offs. Most wild chameleon species have a fairly large clutch size (compared to other other lizards), plus they may multi-clutch over the course of several months, plus most mature very rapidly (several months of age). The general rule is the more the eggs that are laid and the faster the maturity rate the higher the mortality rate. I don't know if anyone knows the exact answers to your questions, but I can speak in some rough generalities to help you with your line of thinking.ġ survival rate for most lizards to sexually reproducting adulthood is extremely low- a few percent (less than several, sometimes more like 3).
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