Are the eggs well?

Just this morning my female laid her very first eggs and now I'm not sure if they'll puff up. My female laid her eggs in sand (I was supposed to change her substrate yesterday but apparently due to 4th of July, the reptile store I normally go to was closed and the only substrate pet super market had was sand) and as I saw they were freshly laid there, I quickly went out to walmart to make a DIY Incubator and as I come back she's made a hill over it. I finish the incubator and the little cup (The cup is a medium sized deli cup, 5 inches tall with a couple holes and has jungle mix, got it from my Blue tongue skink's enclosure, about 2 inches deep. The incubator is just a styrofoam cooler with the cup on the inside and a heat mat on the outside bottom of it with a thermometer) as I took out the eggs from the hill they were dented and a bit dry. I know humidity can swell them back up but my question is how long will it take to get them to swell back up and if they're still fertile? Should I candle them now or wait a few days? Also, how long would it take for the eggs to hatch? Temps seem to be at a steady 83.3 - 84.0. Should I worry if it varies too much or too fast?

About 2 weeks ago I noticed the male tried to mate but the female didn't let her, but just in case I was gonna add the nestbox but I forgot

There's the photo of when I woke up and saw it, then when I came back to get the materials and she had burried them, and the third one is the substrate I put them in inside the cup

The temperatures are fluctuating a bit but they haven't fluctuated any more than 1.8 degrees. Currently it's at 82.8. inside the styrofoam cooler, I put 3 gatorade bottles with water on top of the heat mat and on top of the bottles is the deli box

The incubator's temperature changes from 82 - 86.9 every so often but slowly. Is this something to worry about?

Guys, come on, help me out here. It's been 3 weeks and they're very shriveled and have turned hard. I candled both of them and one is almost a completely pure yellow while the other is still red. They're not pearly white anymore like when they were first laid, now they're sort of a brownish white. They've grown some type of fungus but I managed to remove it off with a cotton swab.

Guys come on, help me out. It's been 3 weeks and they've shriveled up a lot and have turned hard. I've candled both and one of them seems to have died since it's almost a pure yellow, while the other is still red. My gecko is about to lay another 2 and I don't know what to do. 109 views, and not a single soul has replied with at least a little advice.

Wow why has nobody replied, that's so sad. Well they usually shrivel up if theres not enough humidity, make sure it's humid enough in their incubator that it's moist, but not too much that it'll drown the eggs. Your temperatures are fine I just suggest keeping an eye on the humidity, they dry out quick like that. With makeshift incubators, sometimes you'll need to keep the humidity up everyday, since bought incubators usually come with styrofoam and dont let humidity seep out as much.

Can you post some current pictures of the eggs and their incubator? I could try to help out, it would suck to lose eggs, especially if you want babies.

Keep note that opening the incubator to let in fresh air every few days is a great way to keep your eggs healthy, sometimes they need fresh air and need a breather from all of the carbondioxide building up in their incubation nest.

And with fungus, dont try to remove it, unless it's in the earlier stages. If theres an egg with mold, remove it from the others so it doesn't spread, all the other eggs might die if they come into contact with it.

Thanks for replying, you're the first guy to help me

The eggs are pretty dry and shriveled. I was assuming since it's been 3 weeks (I've been told the earliest they can hatch was 35 days) it was close to hatching, but they also told me that the eggs sweat when they're about to, and they've never done that. Before, it was easy to hold humidity and temperature, now for some reason the temperature stays at around 84.9 - 86.7, while back then it may vary between 85-88. Humidity would always hold well, I would always see water droplets forming on top of the lid even if it had like 6 pin holes for breathing.

The Incubator I made is a fishing cooler made out of styrofoam, while on the inside, it has a small heat pad, on top of the heat pad is 3 small Gatorade bottles to lower the heat (If it didn't have it, it would easily reach 95+) and on top of the bottles is a medium sized box with a 3 inch deep jungle mix substrate (Advertised it was a great nesting and incubating medium) that I had lying around in the backyard. I know the eggs were fertile when they were laid, they looked perfectly fine, pearly white, well formed, and wasn't squishy.

The humidity is the substrate has to be moist as well, there could be droplets forming around the container but having the substrate they are in kept moist is also one of the things you have to look for. And dont spray the eggs directly, but make sure with your finger that the substrate on the top is as damp as when you put your finger in about 1 inch or so.

Are the eggs possibly still good though? I know one of them most likely is dead, since when I candled it was almost completely yellow

The ones in the picture look very dead sorry to say

Should I throw them out? If I do, should I open them to see if they did have something?

By the way, what's the smallest incubator I can buy that's reliable and maybe inexpensive? My sister's gonna get paid soon and while I buy the new substrate and everything, I'd like to buy an incubator while I'm there. Should I replace the dirt with something else?

Also, would it work if I were to let the female with the eggs in her nestbox? Should be fine as long as the nestbox has something humid and the bottom of the box has heat, right?

if you look around the web you'll find some for 30-50$, depends where you buy and where you look, and theres also size preference and stuff that comes into play. I mean if you're curious I dont think theres any harm in seeing what has developed so far in the eggs, since theyre probably not going to develop any further.

Theres special hatching substrate you can buy but it's pretty expensive, I'd stick to whatever substrate you have and just make sure to keep an eye on the eggs more often. ( also make sure the dirt you're using has no fertilizer, that harms eggs and animals in general.)

Anything you can come up with to keep the heat up, and moisture in should work, sometimes eggs just go bad, it's just luck (or expensive equipment is needed)

I guess I'll leave a nest box in her cage with heat and moisture and hopefully they'll turn out fine. My fear is she'll stay in that box and won't eat. She had a decently fat tail and as soon as I noticed she became gravid her tail became skinny

I just put a nest box for her. Half the box is on the heat pad and the other half isn't. Now she's kicking the substrate everywhere. I think she'll lay the eggs any moment now.

By the way I opened the eggs, they were both very dry and hard to open. I opened it and the inside was very very dry, almost like it was frozen. They were both fertile though, they had a little red head in the middle.

She just laid the other 2, they look squishy.

Candle the good eggs and see if you can find any veins or red spots in them, if so, theyre fertile.

Keep a closer eye on the new eggs, make sure they dont dry out of theyre fertile!

I just candled them, they're both completely yellow on the inside Is it like that because It's just the second day?

I'm not exactly sure if what I saw was a red mark, but I was assuming it was the moss's shadow that made it look like it but if not, it sort of looked like this http://www.westcoastleopardgecko.com/images/0094.JPG but with less red. Should I wait a couple days to make sure or is it 100% accurate?

I took these pictures yesterday. It doesn't look like good news to me

The top one is well-formed but it's a bit smaller than the second one. I think the second one may have a tiny tiny chance at being fertile.

Sorry for not answering sooner, not much posting here this late in the year. Those eggs look done. But your girl should be laying again soon. It appears humidity to low. I use no holes in my lids and let fresh air in once a week. What you using as medium.

For the old ones, I used "Jungle Mix" which had dirt, tiny bit of mulch, and dried up sphagnum moss. Those eggs are long dead now, I just don't know if these new eggs will live. If they were even fertile that is.

Just opened up the small one. For sure it was infertile. I checked this morning it appeared dented on one side, I picked it up and it was very very soft, pretty much just like a water balloon. I cut it open and no blood at all, just white yolk. The big one was harder but was still yellow and a tiny bit more orange than the other, so I left it.

When eggs are first laid they most likely will candle yellow, a few days later they usually show signs of life if they are fertile(veins, bullseye, etc.) but not always. It can take up to a week for them to show signs of life. If they are squishy like water balloons though it's pretty much guaranteed they are no good.

As for your incubator- Poly Box, heat strip, pulse stat, a bit of glass, small digital thermometer. Makes the perfect incubator.

Put the heat strip inside the poly box, around the inside like below. Make a hole just big enough for the wire, take the plug off and thread the wire through- Put the plug back on. This will keep the temperature easily controllable while connecting to a pulse stat will regulate it almost perfectly. Heat doesn't penetrate polystyrene very well so having the heat mat outside the incubator will have caused a lot of temperature fluctuations which are not good for eggs and can lead to deformities, etc..


The glass goes in the top, mark with a pencil(lightly) around the edge of the glass in the lid of your poly box. Then, using a ruler, mark about a 1.5cm further in, this creates a small lip for the glass to sit on and prevent it falling inside the incubator while creating a viewing window for you to check the eggs without removing the lid. I must add that you want the glass to sit as flush as possible so using a small sharp object(a small smooth edged knife would work) just very lightly scrape that 1.5cm that the glass will sit on to make it a little bit lower(without going through it!) so your glass sits flush with the lid. Secure in place with some non-toxic glue or sealant.

The digital thermometer is the most tricky part. We have ours at the front, what my fiancé did was he cut a hole just big enough for the thermometer to sit in flush to the front. Then, he shaved down the piece of polystyrene he had removed and fitted it back in place over the back of the thermometer with the wire just coming out underneath and leading to the egg box. The egg box has one hole in it, just big enough for the thermometer probe.
The thermostat probe needs to go inside the incubator as close to the egg box as possible but not necessary to be inside. This gives accurate control while preventing more holes being made than necessary.

Hope this helps a bit, sorry I was late I haven't been online for a while as it's been a heck of a season for me and everything so just seen this.