First eggs!

[Rejoice in the Lord]

Boo laid her first eggs ever last night.

I really wasn't expecting them, because from what I have read, leos go off food for several days before laying. With her, after refusing to eat for months, she finally started eating a couple crickets every few days after she was bred, and then a week ago, she started wanting to eat every day. Friday, she shed and only ate that, but Saturday, my mealie hater ate seven of them! I've also read about leos digging up everything in their tank, dragging it all over the place, and in general making a terrible mess. The only messes she made in her tank were the goo she left everywhere, and the calcium dish that she knocked over and dragged around the tank. She did not dig in her lay box at all. So I really wasn't expecting her to lay eggs just yet.

I found the first one when I got home from church last night. I thought it might be the only one she would lay, because there were hard goo spots (possibly part of the white?) crusted in several parts of the tank, and the egg seemed hard. It also was not round and smooth, but rather creased with some bumps here and there. The shell looked wierd too. Most of it was white, but there was a 1/8 inch yellow stripe that ran the length of the egg. Instead of laying it inside one of the two hides with peat moss in them, she laid it on the tile cool side of the tank. It was thoroughly and completely stuck to the tile. I really didn't think that there was any chance of it being alive, but just in case, I decided to try to get it up and put it in the incubator. To unstick it, I put a few drops of water around the base of the egg to let it soak. Then, I took a dull knife and slowly scraped the tile and surprised myself by getting the egg up without rupturing it, and put it into the incubator. Then, I finished cleaning up the gooey spots in her tank and offered her some food. She had no interest in food. I looked at her belly, and didn't see anything unusual. But then I'm really not sure what I am looking for. So I put her into her humid hide, filled her dish with mealies, and went to bed.

This morning, when I got up and checked on her, the first thing I saw was a second egg. This time, the gooey stuff wasn't all over the tank, but mostly in one spot with or near the egg. The egg was laid on the tile on the warm side, so it's been 90-93 all night. It really looked more like a half-flat ball, and one end is all dried up gooey stuff. I did the same with it; a few drops of water to hopefully soften it and very carefully scraped it off the tile and put it in the incubator. Except for the fact that it is half flat, it looks rounder and smoother than the other one, but still not round and smooth like I've seen in pictures of other eggs here.

After putting both of them in the incubator, I put a damp paper towel on top of them. It sounds like that is what you are suppose to do for deflated eggs, and these are definitely not round! The eggs are both good sized, three gram eggs. After laying them, Mom weighed in at 66 grams.

Then I offered Mama some food, but she still shows no interest. Maybe she will tonight.

Even if they are not viable, I am excited because she laid them without any problems

I have a few questions:

1) Is all the goo (egg white looking stuff) normal when a leo lays eggs?

2) What is the chance that the eggs are viable?

3) When the egg is laid on something like tile, what should I do to get it off?

4) Why might she be laying on tile instead of inside her hide? or Is my whipped cream container with a hole in the top a bad size for a laying box?

 

[Rejoice in the Lord]

This afternoon, she laid a third ?egg?

I was watching her lay it, and didn't even know that was what was happening. She got out of her humid hide, went to the cool dry hide, and went inside, and stuck her nose out. I thought maybe she was hungry, and picked up some insects to offer her. She showed no interest in the insects, but a few minutes later, she left the hide and went back to her humid hide. Trying to catch a loose insect, I bumped the hide she had been in, and disclosed a very fresh mess. She had laid the insides of the egg next to the shell instead of inside it. There was a tiny red dash right inside the opening of the egg and the mess, so wonder if this one might have been fertile. She still isn't interested in eating. I wonder if she might have one more that she plans to deposit soon. Last week, when I weighed her, she weighed 73 grams, and now, after laying three eggs she is down to 63. She is still showing no interest in food, so I wonder if she is planning on laying again tonight.