A Dig Box for Clecko

For the past month or so (since Clecks was about 10 months) it seems to me that she's been really scratchy and diggy and spending more time just hiding in her cave. When she is out she is chipping her nails, fighting with her plants, and like digging in the corners of the viv. Cleckos always been a fiesty crazy kind of dragon but all the digging behaviour was new. So off I went to read about what could be going on and I came to the conclusion she's wanting a dig box. Since she's a girl she's going to require this for when she lays eggs.

She's probably too young to lay eggs but during my reading I see that if a female dragon doesn't have a spot to lay the eggs then they could get sick. (rotten egg syndrome inside im guessing) I wanted to get her a dig box so she at least has a spot to go to in case she's one of the dragons that lays eggs early.

I watched a bunch of dig box breeder vids; they make big ones and I suppose the dragon is moved to the box to stay there until she lays her fertilized eggs, then the guy removes them to the incubator. I don't want a giant dig box like this because Clecko's going to be a virgin dragon. I've decided that I'm never going to mate her =)

Some people used a 50% sand/ 50% top soil recipe for the dig. I went with 2 cups of vermaculite with 1 cup of water added.. and then mixed that with 2 cups of organic nothing added to it natural weeds removed top soil. and put that into a little box because Im not sure what kind of container to buy for the finished dig box.

That is the dig box on the bottom left there with the cave on top of it. When I first put it in there Clecko just stared at it for a few hours. Then she went to investigate it and was peeking at it from the little doorway.Â Then I saw her on top of the cave. she stayed there for a while but didnt go inside or on the mud. She ate her dinner crickets then went up to the basking spot where she was when the light went out and it was bedtime. When I went to work at 11 I go to say goodbye to her and found her sleeping in the corner behind the dig box (at the bottom of the hammock thing there) but when I got home in the morning at 7 I could not see her anywhere and I looked and she had moved inside the cave.

She's inside the cave there but you cant see her because there's no flash on the camera.

I put the flash on

and i said Oh! there you are.. she looked all dark and that's her just waking up yesterday morning.

She stayed in that darn box until 3 pm.. when I went and lifted the cave off and took it out of the viv lol.Â I do that to her sometimes when I get mad at her hiding all the time, not sure if I should be or not but She needs to be around for me to look at when I want to look at her hahaha. Poor Clecko. Anyways. she went about acting normal after I moved the cave. Ate, basked, pooped, attacked a few plants,

chilled out by her vent (she likes to look at the vent because the living room window is on the other side and she cant see it that well from the front glass of her viv (i think anyways lol) and in this picture she's leaning about as far as she can before she falls over. Clecko's a reacher!!

Last night, I put the cave back on the box and she went to sleep in there. She's still in there right now.

I have a few questions: do I keep this box in there forever? change the mud like a litter box?Â Is the mixture im using okay? I suppose I'll just keep an eye on her and hope my beardie expert pals have some helpful comments :)

All in all, i think Clecko seems happy with the box and I havn't seen her scratch the walls at all since it was put in. She wasnt even that dirty after she came out of there, but she got a bath anyways. I think her little nails looked blacker.

The other question is.. is it really mean of me to move her cave out of the viv so she wont hide on me? lol

Thanks for reading :)

Â

written by: lanfearinc Sunday, May 04, 2014

1 rating | upvote thisUnlike Like 4 downvote thisUndislike dislike 4 points | 288 views | 2 Comments