This season's hatchlings.

We have lost many eggs to something very strange and I was starting to think this year was going to be a no-go for us. It was very strange, our eggs would get to day 47-49 ish and then just... Die. A few days before(day 45 for example) they would be looking healthy as ever and then a matter of days later they'd be covered in mould and upon candling would be pure gleaming yellow inside with no veins! It was completely confusing and I had no idea what it was.

The pairs we lost eggs from were:
Ember 50% poss het Blizzard x RAPTOr 50% poss het Blizzard.
We have had a total of 6 eggs off this pair. The first clutch contained 1 slug and 1 fertile while clutches two and three contained 2 fertile eggs each. We only have two eggs(her latest clutch) in the incubator now. They look good, they candled good a few days after being laid(I usually candle once unless cause for concern, eg. mould as above) so here's hoping.

Diablo Blanco x RAPTOr 50% poss het Blizzard.
We have had 9 eggs off this pair, we have 4 remaining in incubation. That's a lot of eggs to lose!
The eggs from both pairs went exactly the same way, the way I describe at the top of the thread.
The male bred last year, both females were first time breeders. I can only assume something went wrong with the females?

Our third Tremper based pairing was Blood x G-Project het Tremper x RAPTOr 50% poss het Blizzard.
This pair was bred last year as well, yielding 4 eggs in total with a 100% hatch rate(first time breeders, both of them).
This year we paired them again, so far 6 eggs laid with the female being ready to lay a fourth clutch soon.
Egg number one hatched today, 11 days earlier than expected!!

All of these eggs(from all the females) are being incubated at 28.6c and steady(pulse stat), two digital thermometers are reading this temperature.
Yet this little one hatched out of it's egg on day 49. I don't expect it's sibling to follow just yet, seems someone just couldn't wait to get out! And s/he is a little hisser too!




This pair gave us these hatchlings last year.
Splodge: Male APTOr het Eclipse- Kept.


Smudge: Female APTOr het Eclipse- Kept.


Luna: Female Tremper Albino het Eclipse- Sold, my friend took her and I get regular chances to visit lol.


Pluto: Male "Normal" het TAlbino, Eclipse- Kept.


Sorry about the long post, I wanted to get as much in as possible. I'll add further pictures of further hatchlings(and this little one too) to this thread when I have them

Very nice!

Thank you Kristi

The second little one hatched sometime this morning, a little Normal(that actually looks Normal at the moment!).

Now I'm really starting to think there is something wrong with our Diablo Blanco's eggs. Our incubator has been steady at 28.6 the entire incubation. The only time I've ended up moving it is to add new eggs, or remove bad ones, which literally takes a few seconds.

However, Persephone's(Diablo Blanco) first egg hatched today- A little RAPTOr with malformed eyelids This is upsetting after already losing 5 of her eggs and then this... It's also really weak, so we're going to see how it goes. It's eyelids are in bad shape but if it regains strength I believe it could live a happy life as a pet only.

I know malformed eyelids are usually caused by temperature fluctuations, could the minor .2(ish) degree drop caused by me adding/removing eggs have caused this? Because I don't see how breeders add egg/remove hatchlings without that minor temperature drop.


If anyone would like to know about the parents of this little one-

Persephone- Diablo Blanco.
She has always been a pretty small girl but we put that down to her lineage. We got her at the June Doncaster Show in 2014 and she was approx. 20g when we bought her. We managed to get her up to 65g for breeding and she bulked up really well. She lost a lot of weight while laying, dropping back down to 39g at her lowest point, but she has put that back on beautifully now she's no longer laying eggs.


Zeus- RAPTOr 50% poss het Blizzard.
This boy is big, topping out at 97g at one point. We got him from a shop(sell off stock from a breeder with his full genetics included) in 2014. I have his lineage information on my laptop and know his origins though which is how we knew he was safe to breed.

And in the same day the clutch mate to the RAPTOr above has hatched. Another RAPTOr, this time with very nearly perfect eyes. The only issue with this one is that one eyelid has a slight kink it, barely noticeable but never the less it will be a pet only. A very feisty little fella, tried biting a fair few times already!



"Bright light! Bright light!" - Just to show the minor kink in the eyelid.

Sorry to hear you're having troubles this season :-(.. I'm dealing with the topics of breeding for over 10 years now, and although many common problems are coming from bad nutrition/incubation issues, I personally feel the genetic factors are often underestimated and also play a big role in some of the cases.

I've written an article about this topic on geckotime some time ago in case you are interested, so I don't want to go into more details here.

Lets say generally speaking it is not unlikely that one or both of your parents are just not good breeders- especially when you have other groups raised and cared for in the same housing and feeding conditions to compare..

Unfortunately not all geckos do really make good breeders, so its important to remove them from your breeding plans and keep them as beloved pets only. I had a beautiful W&Y female that was constantly eggbound, the eggs were mostly molding or infertile and the few babys that hatched were all very weak and not able to survive on their own :-(.. She's now kastrated and lives a happy and carefree live over here- so luckily, I never have to worry about eggbinding with her again ;-).

Anyway, hope you'll find out what the problem is!

Dragoon Gecko said:

Sorry to hear you're having troubles this season :-(.. I'm dealing with the topics of breeding for over 10 years now, and although many common problems are coming from bad nutrition/incubation issues, I personally feel the genetic factors are often underestimated and also play a big role in some of the cases.

I've written an article about this topic on geckotime some time ago in case you are interested, so I don't want to go into more details here.

Lets say generally speaking it is not unlikely that one or both of your parents are just not good breeders- especially when you have other groups raised and cared for in the same housing and feeding conditions to compare..

Unfortunately not all geckos do really make good breeders, so its important to remove them from your breeding plans and keep them as beloved pets only. I had a beautiful W&Y female that was constantly eggbound, the eggs were mostly molding or infertile and the few babys that hatched were all very weak and not able to survive on their own :-(.. She's now kastrated and lives a happy and carefree live over here- so luckily, I never have to worry about eggbinding with her again ;-).

Anyway, hope you'll find out what the problem is!

Click to expand...

Thank you so much for your reply, I will take a look at the article you linked.

I did wonder if maybe Persephone just wasn't a good breeder... As I said, she's pretty small for her age and barely hits 65g(her maximum is quite literally 65g ever) so I wondered if maybe her lineage wasn't the best or something along those lines.
She herself is healthy, active, etc. but she is small. She eats well, never misses a meal. In herself, looking at her, she's healthy looking. Just... Small. I know I keep going back to that but everything else about her is the same as our other females(minus our Ember who refuses to eat out of a dish).

I don't think it's the male as he was bred to Zara(Blood x G-Project het Tremper) last year and they were in a much less stable incubator(it was originally used for corns and we suffered a few temp drops with the leo eggs in it unfortunately!) but all four hatchlings were perfectly formed(as can be seen). So far their hatchlings this season are perfectly formed too, the first two in this thread.

The two RAPTOr's were laid the day after the Patty-Stripe(from what I can figure, will keep an eye on it as it sheds) and Normal as well so if it was temperature problems I'd expect those to be malformed too.
Patty-Stripe & Normal - 15th June 2015 ~ Hatched day 49 and day 51.
RAPTOr's - 16th June 2015 ~ Hatched day 51.

Since it's going to be a while until the next eggs hatch I thought I'd update on the hatchlings we already have.

Dam: Blood x G-Project het Tremper.
Sire: RAPTOr 50% poss het Blizzard.

Tangerine Reverse Stripe(as far as I can see right now) het Tremper, Eclipse. Would it be classed as "broken" Reverse Stripe? Lol.



Tangerine het Tremper, Eclipse. I would have said Normal, but it's very bright and the bands are light purple/grey.




I have no updated photo's on the two RAPTOr's as they are still looking a little weak and I don't have much hope for at least one of them. This is a massive shame but after reading up it could be genetics, minor temp fluctuations or prematurity(they both hatched at day 51).
Due to this they have both been left with minimal contact at the moment, only being disturbed for water refills, food top ups and spot cleaning(their poop is minimal at the moment though).

Another hatchling from Zara x Zeus(Blood x G-Project het Tremper x RAPTOr poss het Blizzard)

Looks to be a little Jungle Tremper at the moment going by the very faint markings and red-pink eyes. So friendly already! No screaming, biting or dashing off. Just calmly crawled onto my hand and out!


And I thought I'd update our other hatchlings again
Tangerine Reverse Stripe het Tremper, Eclipse.



Tangerine het Tremper, Eclipse.



And a small update on the two from Persephone x Zeus(Diablo Blanco x RAPTOr poss het Blizzard).
Unfortunately our little RAPTOr with really bad eyes didn't make it But it's sibling is eating and gaining weight steadily. Still a little weak but getting there Here's hoping this little one keeps on going as it is!

And the clutch mate came out today

A Tremper Reverse Stripe by the looks of it. We'll see how this one develops too. This is a very feisty little one! Screaming, hissing and biting all the way!

Another baby!! Our first baby from Seraphine x Zeus


Hatched sometime early this morning. The sneaky little thing managed to go over the divider that separates Seraphine and Persephone's eggs so the egg pictured is not the egg it hatched from lol.