Underbite - Pet Only?

Neon Aurora

New Member
Messages
1,376
Location
New Mexico
So I was just feeding everyone and was carefully looking them all over for stuck shed or anything like that. For some reason, some of my geckos have been getting shed stuck on their noses, so I was checking especially carefully for that. While I was doing this, I noticed one of my juvies actually has an underbite I never noticed before. It's quite subtle, seeing as I never noticed it until now.

Is a mild underbite grounds to sell the gecko as pet only? I already have one with a short tail that will be pet only and another with more severe deformities. I am a little concerned that I have so many. That's 3/15, or 20%. I know it can't be from inbreeding, as both pairings I did all geckos were from different breeders. perhaps I need to look at my incubation techniques and see if I can improve them for next time.
 

acpart

Geck-cessories
Staff member
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15,156
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Somerville, MA
I would imagine that it would be safest to sell her as pet only.
Here's my story: in 2014, I produced 64 leopard geckos and 17 of them, or 26% had deformities. These primarily consisted of malformations in rear legs, notched eyelids and what looked like loose joints or ligaments in rear legs (so they walked funny). About 5 of the 17 died. I was using the Reptipro5000 which tends to have trouble maintaining the proper temperature when the ambient temperature changed greatly (I'd have to adjust the incubator to keep the temp steady). In 2015 I bought a Thermo-bator from DVM Exotics which has a much finer temp control and an alarm if the temp exceeds set parameters. I had a small season in 2015 with a lot of eggs that didn't hatch, not because of the incubator. This season I have produced 59 leopard geckos with 6 more due to hatch. In the 2 seasons with the Thermo-bator, I have had no hatchling deaths and only 2 (clutch mates) that hatched somewhat bug-eyed. No other deformities. I can't help but think that the incubator has something to do with it.

Aliza
 

Neon Aurora

New Member
Messages
1,376
Location
New Mexico
Pet only it is.

Hmm. Well, I suppose my incubator is not terribly fancy. It was just a styrofoam box with heat tape regulated by a Herpstat 1. To me, it seemed like the temps were always very stable. The temperature on the Herpstat always read pretty much the same and the temperature of the additional thermometer in the eggbox also read about the same. Do you think I would do well to add some water bottles or something next season? I thought my incubator worked pretty well, but perhaps it doesn't.
 

acpart

Geck-cessories
Staff member
Messages
15,156
Location
Somerville, MA
The water bottles wouldn't hurt. I'm mystified by the temp issues in incubators myself. In nature there's certainly quite a lot of temp fluctuation, but for all I know there are hatchlings with deformities that don't survive. Who knows?

Aliza
 

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