Hi I have been having some trouble with my Mali Uromastyx, They feed, overwinter and pair but the resulting eggs although having a blood spot to indicate fertility only survive a couple of days before they collapse and start leaking. The Malis five in all 2F and 3M are fed dried soup mix which includes various lentils and seeds every day and they have leaves and flowers of Dandelion Dock etc the females also have vitamin dusted Mealworms three times a week. Substrate is fine grain Oyster shell a source of calcium they have been observed to eat it. 12% uv tube plus a Compact D3 bulb and a Spot bulb that gets the temp to 38C the viv is 3.5ft by 2ft. I managed to breed Geryiis a couple of years ago. Any ideas? Thanks Clive
There's many possible causes - some involve the eggs themselves and some the incubation. Did she have a laybox and use it? and bury the eggs herself? Were the eggs removed to an incubator - how soon after laying and to what substrate and conditions? One of the most common problems with uros is when they don't seem to like any of the possible egg-laying sites. Eggs scattered around the cage never seem to hatch even if they look good. I wonder if something we can't observe about the eggs changes when they are retained a little too long. If she didn't make a proper nest I might speculate the cage has too many occupants for her liking. Of course, nutritional, temperature and lighting factors could cause inadequate shells.
I appreciate that a variety of factors may have led to the failure of th eggs. The Females were put in their own viv as soon as they started digging (They had both paired within a couple of days and I was not sure which one would lay first). They had a box with a tube for them to use, but they did not like it the eggs were just scattered on top of the substrate, I even found an egg yesterday nearly three weeks after the first egg was laid. I did read that yhe length of hibernation affects where the eggs are laid with a higher chance of the egg box being used if the hibernation is 60 days or more. these Hibernated for 60 days.
