Are you looking into breeding bearded dragons?
Do you want to try hatching bearded dragon eggs?
Taking on the task of breeding and caring for beardie eggs may seem overwhelming, but with the proper knowledge, tools, and preparation, it’ll be a piece of cake!
You need to know how to take care of bearded dragon eggs.
Caring for bearded dragon eggs is tricky, but if you keep the temperature at 80° – 85° degrees Fahrenheit (27° – 29° C), humidity at 75%, watch out or mold, and handle them little, in 40-90 days, the eggs will hatch.
Read on for more details and commonly asked questions.
Table of Contents
How To Care For Bearded Dragon Eggs
In this section, we’ll go into details on how to hatch bearded dragon eggs.
Take this knowledge to help you decide if this is something you’re interested in pursuing.
How Many Eggs Do Bearded Dragons Lay?
Bearded dragons lay in groups of eggs called clutches.
These clutches are typically numbered around 20 eggs.
A bearded dragon will commonly lay anywhere between 1 and 3 clutches per pregnancy.
This would give you anywhere from 20-60 eggs.
However, it isn’t unheard of for bearded dragon females to lay up to six clutches.
This would give you up to 120 eggs!
Don’t worry; this isn’t very common. But you should still be prepared just in case.
Can Female Bearded Dragons Lay Eggs Without A Male?
Yes, female bearded dragons will go through a cycle where they appear pregnant without mating with a male.
This will result in eggs being laid.
However, these eggs are without embryos and will never hatch.
If you’re unsure whether the eggs have baby bearded dragons inside, try a test called candling.
This will help you determine if there are any baby beardies in the eggs.
For candling, hold the egg up to bright light.
You will be able to see through the egg to a certain extent.
If you see a pinkish embryo and small shape inside, the egg has a baby inside and will hatch.
When you hold the egg up and see nothing, they won’t hatch.
These eggs which have nothing inside them should be discarded.
Warning! Take care not to rotate the eggs around, or the reptiles inside could perish.
Move them only as much as you need to and very carefully.
And if you begin experiencing issues such as collapse check out our article on why bearded dragon eggs collapse for additional information.
What Do Bearded Dragons Eggs Look Like?
Bearded dragon eggs are small ovular shaped eggs, mainly white/cream in color.
The eggs are small and laid in groups called clutches.
As we mentioned above, when you put a bright light behind the egg, you may see a pinkish network of blood vessels and even a small embryo.
This will let you know these eggs will hatch.
What To Do With Bearded Dragon Eggs?
After the eggs are laid, and you confirm there are babies inside, you have two choices for what to do with them:
- Care for them in the soil where they were laid
- Move them to an incubator and wait
Either option will work, although the incubator tends to have a higher hatch rate.
This may seem counter to what you’d expect from an artificial environment, but you have better control over temperature and humidity.
Look ahead for a breakdown of both methods.
Natural Soil
After the eggs are laid in soil, you need to clean the bedding to reduce mold and bacteria.
You also may want to consider removing the female bearded dragon.
Bearded dragons don’t care for their eggs, and they may even try to eat their offspring after they’re born.
It’s just the way it is.
You’ll want to use an under-the-tank heater or overhead lamp to keep the temperature at a solid 80° – 85° degrees Fahrenheit (27° – 29° C).
This temperature needs to stay consistent during the whole incubation period.
The trickiest part of keeping the environment just right is getting the humidity up to 75% relative as much as possible.
In a tank, the best way to do this is to spray the soil down often.
Use a hygrometer to track it.
Warning! Don’t spray down the eggs directly.
This could encourage mold growth on the eggs’ surfaces, which will result in birth defects or still-birth.
Watch the eggs for mold and try to move them as little as possible.
Then, just be patient.
It takes 40-90 days for eggs to hatch once laid if they’re fertile.
Incubation And Waiting
The struggles with mold, humidity, and temperature are exactly why most people use incubators to hatch their bearded dragon eggs.
The biggest risk with this method is the initial movement of the eggs into the incubator.
But if you move slowly without turning the eggs over, you’ll still have a high hatch rate.
Once you’ve put the eggs into their incubators, all you need to do is set the incubator at the correct temperature and relative humidity.
Depending on the type of incubator you get, you won’t have to check on it even once.
Some of the best ones are all digital and track and adapt everything for you.
Other ones still make your life easier by giving you more control over the temp and humidity.
But you’ll need to be more hands-on in adjusting the heater and/or water pan for humidity.
Either way, it’s still a more consistent choice than leaving in soil.
Overall, it results in more births without problems.
The biggest problem you may have as an owner is deciding which incubator to use.
We’ve helped you out here, with our review of the five best incubators for bearded dragon eggs.
Once the eggs are in, it still takes 40-90 days for the eggs to hatch. So just be patient.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed reading about how to take care of bearded dragon eggs.
As long as you handle them very little and get the temperature and humidity in the right place, the eggs should hatch at a good rate.
Breeding bearded dragons is an interesting addition to owning a pet, and it is very rewarding.
