Dragon Eggs, Day 30

Amy knocked the lid askew on the incubator again yesterday. Again, don't know how long it was off, but I fixed it and moved the incubator out of the reach of small dogs.

The heat was BRUTAL today.

When I got home from work, the temperature inside the incubator was at 94 degrees.
it's supposed to be at 84 degrees. Extended periods of time at over 90 degrees can kill the embryos.
I really hope I wasn't too late.

Before

Incubator Status (3pm):
Temperature: 94 degrees fahrenheit
Humidity: 47%

After

Incubator Status (6pm):

Temperature: 86 degrees fahrenheit

Humidity: 55%

The humidity is STILL super low. It should be between 70 and 80%

I threw so much ice in there to cool it off, I was worried there wouldn't be enough to put in the cages for the dragons and geckos, and in the water bowl for the dog and cats.

There was enough though. The girls were so happy about the ice water in their pool, they decided to go swimming (it had gotten around 110 in their cage, Smaug's wasn't so bad, it stayed around 98)

I know, their pool is dirty. They keep dragging material from the dig box into it.

Dragon Eggs Day 24, Gecko Eggs Day 6

Incubator Status:
Temperature:84 degrees fahrenheit
Humidity: 77%

I know, I skipped a couple days.

I was a little distracted.

Candled the eggs again tonight. I think I am starting to be able to see a little shadow in the middle of the eggs.

Morgan attempted to escape again. She figured out that the lock was keeping the cage door closed, and she tried to do something about it.

This is as far as she got:

 

After an evening and a morning of failure, I left her to her devices. I came home to a pouting snake:

It appears that the problem solver has been successfully contained.

The gecko eggs look the same. No worse, no better.

Amy learned to high-five today.

Dragon Eggs Day 21, Gecko Eggs Day 3

Incubator Status:
Temperature: 84 degrees fahrenheit
Humidity: 71%

The gecko eggs had white fuzz on them again. I took them out of the incubator. I think they are probably bad, so I don't want to keep them in the incubator with the dragon eggs.

They COULD still be OK though. I have heard of ugly, bad looking eggs hatching out normal geckos, so I left them in their cup. I put them in a spot where there is a pretty steady temperature of about 83 degrees. We will see what happens. I am not terribly optimistic about them, but we will see.

-=-*-=-

The dragon eggs, on the other hand, are looking great.

I measured them again today (Week 4):

Last week (Week 3):

More growth. YAY!

Here's the updated chart:

Super high-tech EXCEL graph.

-=-*-=-

A couple days ago (Sunday night) One of the snakes (Morgan, the less 'bright' of the two) attempted to escape her cage. I caught her with the door slid open about 3/4 of an inch, and she was slowly pushing it wider.

This is NOT the first time. It is the second. The FIRST time was almost 2 weeks ago during Game Night, and they DID get out. Both of them. I found Morgan in the den by the buffet table, just watching us game and talk. Lilly was curled up just outside of the cage, asleep. I thought I had left the cage door open by mistake, even though I am always super careful about that. 

Sunday night proved otherwise though, as I caught Morgan in the act.

I didn't think they were strong enough to move those doors. 24x45 inches of 1/4 inch tempered glass is PRETTY heavy. Even I have a tough time moving them sometimes. I was wrong though, I saw her moving it.

I wedged the cage door with a wooden dowel, then went online and ordered one of those security locks they have on the sliding glass doors of the display cabinets in retail stores. It came in the mail today.

Morgan is going to have a very difficult time escaping now.

No more escaping for you, Morgan!

 She tried again tonight, Amy was barking like crazy as she watched.

The attempt was unsuccessful.

-=-*-=-

Amy got a new puppy blanket tonight.

She has been stealing my USAF fleece blanket for the past week. I had a 1 yard piece of the fleece left from when I was making the blanket, and had planned on making some pillows with it, or maybe using it for a quilt, but I wanted MY blanket back.

In order for me to get my blanket back, Amy needed one of her own.

Yep, she likes it.

Dragon Eggs, day 19 AND Gecko Eggs Day 1

Incubator status:

Temperature: 84 (had to use ice again, it tried to drift up to 90 again)

Humidity: 65 (48 noonish)

Squeaker popped.

She laid her eggs sometime during the night last night, but I didn't notice till between noon and 1, because it is the weekend, so I slept in, then the boys were here, so I was distracted.

She didn't like the lay box I made her. She pulled all of the moss out of it, and dragged it into Hunter's favorite hide. She laid them there. Unfortunately, that was not a 'wet hide' and the humidity today was VERY low. Like, single-digits low. 12+ hours in extremely low humidity. The eggs were a little deflated.

I took Amy for a walk around the block, and checked on the geckos when I got back. Squeaker was sprawled in her favorite nap spot, and looked a little skinnier, so I picked her up. Didn't see the eggs through her belly skin anymore, so I started looking for them. Didn't take long.

I have read articles where the eggs were in worse shape than that, and did just fine, though. So, I put them in the incubator anyway.

The incubator is starting to look a little on the 'full' side.

The one with the betta on the lid has the gecko eggs. I recycle containers, and I ran out of Superworm containers. Can always switch it Wednesday when I go buy more.

Amy isn't used to this much exercise. I wore her out.

Dragon Eggs, Day 19

TOO Friggin HOT today! It says it was only 94 today, but it felt WAY hotter than yesterday. Yesterday it was 97.

The incubator spiked to 90 again today, had to toss in some ice again. That got it back down.

Incubator Status:
Temperature: 85 degrees fahrenheit (was 90 degrees around noon)
Humidity: 68% (was 46% around noon)

Also gave the dragons some ice cubes. Got video of Smaug with his. He loved it.

Amy decided that it was a good idea to slip out of her harness and chase the neighborhood raccoon. She (surprisingly) treed it rather successfully. She was very disappointed that I put her harness back on and dragged her inside. She even tried to convince me that she had to pee again, just to get back outside. Twice.

Darned smart little dog has figured out how to lie.

Olaf is getting ready to shed. He looks really cool, VERY white, like a little gecko-ghost.

Dragon Eggs, Day 18 - and PUPPY!

Yesterday was pretty exhausting. Didn't post

Today I got some pictures to make up for it though.

Incubator Status:
Temperature: 84 (90 at noon though)
Humidity: 53 (36 at noon)

Had a VERY hot day here today. Was up to 97 outside, and even hotter in the house. I have been keeping the incubator in one of the coolest spots in the house, but even so, it managed to get up to 90 degrees in there today. I added some ice to bring the temperature back down, and that worked very nicely.

It got really dry in there too, but there wasn't much I could do about that except add more containers of water. The humidity started coming back up as the temperature dropped.

Candled some eggs today. It's tough to see the difference, but there ARE more veins and stuff.

Got a cute picture of Hunter and Squeaker:

and a shot of Squeaker's gravid belly:

She looks ready to pop any day now.

-=-=-

New puppy. Technically, picked her up on Tuesday, but wanted to give her a chance to settle in a bit before chasing her with a camera. Found her on Craigslist. Her name is Amy.She is a Miniature Pinscher. She's carrying around a bit of chubbiness, but that won't last long. She's going to be getting daily walks, and hopefully BOTH of us can drop off a bit of chubbiness that way.