First time I've EVER had this happen...

[SFgeckos]

Really weird, somewhat funny, situation happened this morning...

I've produced hundreds of geckos over the past decade plus, and I've NEVER had this happen before!!

I peeked into my incubator and noticed a gecko was mid-hatching, so I took some photos. As the new baby slid out of the egg, her sister proceeded to accidentally STEP on her face! At this point, the newly hatched gecko came out of the egg and latched onto the tail of her sister! A few rounds of rolling and tumbling followed, which the newly hatched baby won after she took her clutchmate's tail off! They continued to hiss and lunge at each other, (I peeked through the incubator window without disturbing the containers) even after I came back about 30 minutes later! I eventually separated them- this is sibling rivalry to the fullest, straight out of the egg! haha

Perhaps she was jealous that her sister had a striped tail, as opposed to her normal banded? =)

Just thought I'ld share a quick laugh!

Jon

 

[Dan K.]

well that kind of sucks

 

[rawson5084]

That sucks

 

[JCornelisse5]

why wouldn't you separate them right away?

 

[Tommy13b]

for real dude why would you let them fight and take pictires and think its funny, Thats so cruel.

 

[OneFootedAce]

I wouldn't call this really "a laugh", i find this cruel and mean, why wouldn't u seperate them as soon as you see this hapenning?

 

[Stitchex]

There goes a beautiful striped tail ripped off, all the while you were just standing there...why didn't you stop them?

 

[SteveB]

Damn dude... not funny at all.

 

[snowgyre]

Dude people, chill out. Have you ever gone to the park and seen two dogs latch onto each other? Normally the fight is over even before you can react. I think it was inevitable that the gecko would've dropped its tail once it was already in 'defense' mode, regardless of intervening or not. Besides, the gecko hadn't even finished hatching when the whole thing started! I would've been nervous about moving them so early on! I normally don't touch my babies for the first 24 hours, especially if there's any hint of a yolk sack remaining.

I actually think it's pretty funny. A rare occurrence, a shame the little one is gonna have a regenerated tail, but a good story none the less. Thanks for sharing!

 

[gothra]

That is so sad.

 

[Tommy13b]

Right so two geckos fighting is funny snow, I would of atleast put somthing between them if there biteing and hissing at eachother, its not rocketscience dude!

 

[Baoh]

Dude people, chill out. Have you ever gone to the park and seen two dogs latch onto each other? Normally the fight is over even before you can react. I think it was inevitable that the gecko would've dropped its tail once it was already in 'defense' mode, regardless of intervening or not. Besides, the gecko hadn't even finished hatching when the whole thing started! I would've been nervous about moving them so early on! I normally don't touch my babies for the first 24 hours, especially if there's any hint of a yolk sack remaining.

I actually think it's pretty funny. A rare occurrence, a shame the little one is gonna have a regenerated tail, but a good story none the less. Thanks for sharing!

You don't allow dogs to keep going at it if you can stop them, either. So hilarious.

 

[alliemackie]

I think it was inevitable that the gecko would've dropped its tail once it was already in 'defense' mode, regardless of intervening or not. Besides, the gecko hadn't even finished hatching when the whole thing started! I would've been nervous about moving them so early on! I normally don't touch my babies for the first 24 hours, especially if there's any hint of a yolk sack remaining.

I actually think it's pretty funny. A rare occurrence, a shame the little one is gonna have a regenerated tail, but a good story none the less. Thanks for sharing!

All experiences I have heard, people remove hatchlings from the incubator as soon as they notice them coming out. Why was the first hatchling not removed while the other one was hatching?

Sure, accidents may happen while you sleep, or under other potential unsupervised circumstances. But this happened while being watched, laughed at, and photographed. Not cool.

 

[SFgeckos]

Hi,

In response to everyone's comments- I can understand how it may appear "cruel and mean", but I've hatched hundreds of geckos and NEVER had any issues keeping newly hatched babies together, often as long as 3-4 days.
Also, there would be NO way I could have prevented the newly hatched baby from biting her clutchmate's tail off. This was because, the moment her sister stepped on her face, she came out of the egg and latched onto her tail! Basically, the entire "dropping tail fight" occurred within 2-3 seconds of her hatching from the egg!

Normally, clutchmates can still be kept together, even if they hiss or lunge (which is a defensive mechanism) often times when disturbed in the egg container. As mentioned before, I did eventually seperate them because they were still hissing at each other.

This was a very rare incident that I wanted to share. I sincerely apologize if I have offended anyone with my words or through the use of photos.

Jon

 

[KelliH]

I get it Jon, and I wasn't offended. ;-)

 

[CHAMpion]

Me neither if you could have done something you would have reacted

 

[JoshuaTrana]

I agree. Sometimes you jsut cant do anything. And its not like it killed the other gecko

 

[shadowx362]

I get it
Seriously, People are over reacting and REALLY need to get "real".

 

[Lordoftheswarms]

What I don't understand is after the tail was dropped, why continue to take pictures rather than separate them? Seems like your making a show of it, and didn't care that your hatchling was just injured.

 

[Khrysty]

What I don't understand is after the tail was dropped, why continue to take pictures rather than separate them? Seems like your making a show of it, and didn't care that your hatchling was just injured.

It's not like he ran to get the camera first--he was taking pictures of the hatchlings, they fought, and he snapped a couple of other photos before separating them.

I probably would have done the same. At that point, having never experienced anything like it before, I would have been too stunned to do much else for a moment. Something like that is a bit shocking.