Feeding Female Lizards During Their Breeding Cycles

For female lizards, the demands of reproduction mean the investment of considerable energy in the production of eggs. In addition, several species of insect-eating lizards lay multiple egg clutches, further taxing a female's energy reserves. Because the synthesis of egg shells requires calcium, significant demands are placed on the calcium reserves of gravid females. In captivity, failure to provide adequate calcium can result in soft- or thin-shelled eggs, lessxesistant to trauma and disease. There is also evidence that the nutritional quality of the diet offered a female lizard can affect the size of eggs and the quality and quantity of food reserve available to the embryo (in the yolk). Thus, it is important that care be given to offer breeding and gravid females a high-quality diet which is rich in calcium.

Sizes and types of foods offered to gravid females will also have to be varied. Because the developing eggs may take up a significant portion of the abdominal cavity, the digestive organs may be compressed, thus making feeding on large prey, or on a large volume of prey items, impossible. Gravid female lizards will usually feed on smaller prey and ingest a smaller total volume ofpreyper feeding. Offering smallerprey more frequently is highly recornmended at this time. Poor health and inadequate diet are believed to be associated with an increased risk of egg binding in gravid females.