Preggers Bindi! We need advice!

[CurtisGalle]

My husband and I are new to the Chameleon forum and need some advice please. We have browsed the forum but I thought I would just start a new thread.

We got out girl Bindi (veiled) in Oct 2011 everything was fine till she started going to the ground. We watched her different habbits till we took her to a wonderful vet and sure enough she has eggs. Her bones, color, weight everything else is perfect per the vet.

We tried adding just the soil, sand mixer to her cage and she would scratch at the sides some but spent more time on her ropes so now we got her a "trash bin" 20 gallon with play sand 12" deep and moist. We have her 75watt lamp along with her stip light on the laying bin and even started two holes for her. She is eating (not as much) but seems okay.

The question we have is it's been over a week since Dec 28th, 2011 and she has still not dug a hole or seems to want to lay the eggs. The xrays showed the eggs are not calcified enough that the dr was worried yet and she should be able to lay them. But it has been since Friday Jan 6th, 2012 and nothing yet.

We know that they should be left alone, but we do spray her and check on her from time to time.

Our questions:

1. How long can they carry before they lay and or we get really worried?
2. Should we have something in her laying bin to crawl up on? We had a stick but she would just hang on the stick, so we took it out and now she is just on the dirt.
3. At night do we put her back in her kennel or keep her in the laying bin?
4. Will she eventually end up digging and laying or could this take days, weeks, months? (the time frame is our biggest concern)

Please any advice and help would be greatly appreicated, we love her so! We will have our eyes glued waiting to her from you all!

 

[kinyonga]

What species is she?
You said she was digging but has stopped?
Are you sure it was digging and not just scratching at the dirt/sand?

 

[CurtisGalle]

Veiled you are right more scratching then anything. Thanks!

 

[Georgia]

I went through a similar situation with my little girl. the running joke with my co-workers is she obviously didn't read the text book on egg laying. It is possible that I am just an over protective mommy and caught the signs super early, but Georgia took well over a month from the time I noticed her scratching at the bottom of her enclosure to the time she actually started digging holes and finally laid her eggs. I was one worried mommy with her first clutch because of the talk of timing and egg binding... she also ate a few crickets every day or so right up until she laid them which seems to be out of the ordinary as well. I have her egg laying bin in her enclosure from the time she starts to slack on her eating/scratching around, until she lays. She just laid her second clutch and showed similar habits as her first. Hopefully everything goes well for you. let me know how she does. oh the calcification of Georgias' eggs didn't look great either but they were perfectly normal looking once laid. The technique used for radiographs(x-rays) can vary. I do have pics of her recent issue with ingesting some of her egg laying sand, i'll try to put the rads taken of her first clutch on here for you. Follow the advice of your vet, it's great that you brought her in

 

[CurtisGalle]

Thank you so much! I feel like I'm the only one in the world this is happening to.

I posted this same information on a different thread and JannB gave us lots of tips too!

You made me feel so much better knowing you went through what we are. She showed signes today of lots of digging so we moved her to her laying bin.

What type of enclouser do you have? What do you use for a lying bin?

We have her in a 20gallon glass tank before we educated ourselfes and now she had a nice big screened enclouser. We have not moved her to it yet because we just got it all set up.

Our issues is she really loves her glass tank and that is where she is digging and she hates her Laying bin so we are kind of lost right now on what to do and where to keep her.

All my husband and I keep saying is we don't want anything wrong to happen and just want the nightmare to be over and her to be safe.

 

[CurtisGalle]

Bindi's rads.

 

[camimom]

I see alot of eggs.
Did the vet say how far along the eggs were?

 

[sarahja143]

My Female Cham is the same i got her a big new viv & she refused to lay her eggs in it. so i had to put her back in the old viv a couple of nights later & we had 46 perfect little eggs. shes lays regularly so we now have her egg box ready for her when shes starts scatching around. she usually digs for a week or so but can take up to a month.
My cham, Fern wont lay in sand she likes vermiculite in a large lunch box which is about 6inches deep. i didnt want to give her a massive box as the poor little girl gets exhausted digging. we've had 3 successful clutches off Fernie & shes a happy little girl. she seems to love her egg box.

 

[CurtisGalle]

cami-no the vet did not say just that they were not to the point of being worried...

Sarah--good to hear they will lay in smaller bins too, she is back in her normal viv and we decided not to put her in her new bigger viv for fear she would be uncomfortable in brand new surroundings. cross your fingers everyone and pray our little bindi has eggs when i get home (or at least digging around again!)

 

[kinyonga]

The photo/x-ray is not very large...but it looks to me like the "eggs" are still roundish...which should mean that they haven't ovulated yet....so they shouldn't be ready to be laid. I'm not a vet though so I can only go by my own experience, etc.

 

[CurtisGalle]

kinyonga, thank you i didnt notice that but do now that you mention it and i have looked at some other pics it does appear that way. That was taken last Friday so hopefully she has or will lay soon. im still at work but will be home for a short bit and carefully ck on her.

 

[laurie]

kinyonga, thank you i didnt notice that but do now that you mention it and i have looked at some other pics it does appear that way. That was taken last Friday so hopefully she has or will lay soon. im still at work but will be home for a short bit and carefully ck on her.

Because you are new, I want to let you know that kinyonga (lynda) is then most knowledgeable person on this forum, except for the couple vets. That is just my opinion after reading 1,000 of posts.

 

[ijmccollum]

Bindi prego!?! What would Irwin think!?! LOL Sorry couldn't help it. Hang in there, females are nerve-wrecking.

 

[camimom]

Bindi prego!?! What would Irwin think!?! LOL Sorry couldn't help it. Hang in there, females are nerve-wrecking.

HAHA. this was funny.

 

[CurtisGalle]

HA now i get it, Irwin...yeah hes probably rolling in his grave. RIP Croc Hunter

 

[laurie]

Well keep us posted, on how she is doing.

 

[jannb]

Glad to hear that you got her into the vets. She is full of eggs. Did the vet give you some liquid calcium for her? I always give that before and after laying and feel that it is important.

 

[CurtisGalle]

Laurie, Thank you she was scratching around last night but i didnt dare bother her..i hope she laid today. Ill let you all know..

Jann, i asked about the calcium and he didnt give me any....hmmm

but that brings up another question i have not yet had answered. I would like to feed her but i didnt last night in fear i would mess up her digging. I plan on dusting some crickets tonight with straight calcium and trying to be careful and putting them in the cage with her.

Do you think this is ok? is she ok to not eat a night or 2?

 

[jannb]

Laurie, Thank you she was scratching around last night but i didnt dare bother her..i hope she laid today. Ill let you all know..

Jann, i asked about the calcium and he didnt give me any....hmmm

but that brings up another question i have not yet had answered. I would like to feed her but i didnt last night in fear i would mess up her digging. I plan on dusting some crickets tonight with straight calcium and trying to be careful and putting them in the cage with her.

Do you think this is ok? is she ok to not eat a night or 2?

She could skip a day but I wouldn't let her skip more. I'd sneak in a few crickets. Sometimes they will stop eating a day or two before they lay.

Since you didn't get any liquid calcium I would dust heavy with calcium without d3.