Dead in the Egg (no pictures) - reposted

[acpart]

I have been getting an unusual number of dead in the egg leos. The egg seems to go bad towards the end of incubation. The babies that I remove (I only open the egg when it's clear that they won't hatch and have gone past 8 weeks, when most of my eggs are hatching at 7 weeks) are definitely dead before I remove them, are generally fully or nearly fully developed and do not have any obvious abnormalities. Currently I have 6 females producing eggs with a total of 4 males. All the geckos (with 1 exception) are quite healthy. In some cases, the clutchmate of the "dead in the egg" is healthy and large. All the hatchlings I have except for 2 were born large and active. The 2 exceptions came from eggs that seemed a little smaller. They started out smaller but have grown well and are also healthy and active. The dead-in-the-egg is not limited to a single female or male. Everything is the same as last season when this didn't occur so often:
incubating in a reptipro5000 at about 83, using the SIM with perlite.

A few years ago, a lot of people had a poor season with multiple abnormal hatchlings. I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing this or if it's just me.

Aliza

 

[30secondstobob]

The other day I disposed of a second egg (long past due) that had what looked to be a fully developed "perfect" hatchling in it. The four or five other eggs I disposed of were obviously infertile. So far, I'm only at about a 50% hatch rate as a first time breeder with a first year breeding pair. That being said, every baby that hatched was an absolute joy! We'll see what the remaining eggs will do, then call it a season. Bob

 

[That_DL_Kid]

I have had three dead in eggs this year. Last year my first year breeding I had none. The third one was this morning it is sad but its part of the game.

 

[roger]

I have been getting an unusual number of dead in the egg leos. The egg seems to go bad towards the end of incubation. The babies that I remove (I only open the egg when it's clear that they won't hatch and have gone past 8 weeks, when most of my eggs are hatching at 7 weeks) are definitely dead before I remove them, are generally fully or nearly fully developed and do not have any obvious abnormalities. Currently I have 6 females producing eggs with a total of 4 males. All the geckos (with 1 exception) are quite healthy. In some cases, the clutchmate of the "dead in the egg" is healthy and large. All the hatchlings I have except for 2 were born large and active. The 2 exceptions came from eggs that seemed a little smaller. They started out smaller but have grown well and are also healthy and active. The dead-in-the-egg is not limited to a single female or male. Everything is the same as last season when this didn't occur so often:
incubating in a reptipro5000 at about 83, using the SIM with perlite.

A few years ago, a lot of people had a poor season with multiple abnormal hatchlings. I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing this or if it's just me.

Aliza

Aliza

Is this the first year you have used the reptipro ??

 

[acpart]

No, it's the third year I think and I didn't have these problems previously. I keep a digital thermometer with probe inside the SIM and the temps are good. Last week I had 3 leo eggs hatch at 48 days, all healthy. This week I have 8 eggs (4 leos, 3 fat tails, 1 coleonyx) all about 8 weeks along, all looking good and nothing has hatched yet. I expect the fat tail eggs to go longer, but am not sure what's going on with the others. It's hard to be patient . . .

Aliza

 

[roger]

No, it's the third year I think and I didn't have these problems previously. I keep a digital thermometer with probe inside the SIM and the temps are good. Last week I had 3 leo eggs hatch at 48 days, all healthy. This week I have 8 eggs (4 leos, 3 fat tails, 1 coleonyx) all about 8 weeks along, all looking good and nothing has hatched yet. I expect the fat tail eggs to go longer, but am not sure what's going on with the others. It's hard to be patient . . .

Aliza

I had an issue about 3 years ago and figured out that I was opening the deli cup twice a week which was too often.If you have analyzed everything and you feel comfortable that you havent done anything different than previous years I would put it to just mother nature.Have you looked at your supplements?I switched to the ICB plus and found I had absolutely no deaths or long term babies dying in the egg?

 

[ChristinaJ]

I've been lucky and only had 3 dead in the egg so far this year, and I've had over a hundred eggs so far, however, I've had about 10 infertile eggs which didn't surprise me that much since I have alot of new projects I started this year and most of those geckos are first year breeders.

 

[acpart]

I had an issue about 3 years ago and figured out that I was opening the deli cup twice a week which was too often.If you have analyzed everything and you feel comfortable that you havent done anything different than previous years I would put it to just mother nature.Have you looked at your supplements?I switched to the ICB plus and found I had absolutely no deaths or long term babies dying in the egg?

I switched to Repashy Calcium plus in '09 and had an unbelievably good season, so I've kept up with that.

Aliza