got some unplanned eggs this morning

[loggerboots]

Hi Folks,

One of our leopard geckos laid eggs last night. We're going to go ahead and try to hatch them as the kids are excited and we can keep them (this wasn't an intentional breeding, see my introductory post for details).

I have some questions. The eggs are attached, with one egg sort of perpendicular to the other. I did a little research and most folks indicated that the eggs should be just left attached. My concern is that the egg that isn't laying flat will not live - as I understand it, the eggs need to be kept at the same orientation that they've been since conception, and obvious, this one ain't.

Also, the egg that is laying flat is now a nice chalky white while the other (the skewed one) has a slightly yellow hue.

I'm guessing the questionable egg is no good. If this is the case, should I risk seperating them? If the one egg is fertile, will the attached, bad egg eventually ruin it as it starts to decompose?

I have an additional question. I suspect the eggs were laid last night and they probably sat in the room temperature (ish) moist hide for the entire night. How soon must the eggs get into the incubator to have a chance of surviving?

 

[katie_]

I wouldnt be too upset if these eggs are dudds. Sounds like you'll have more soon. id seperate your male and your female unless you want A LOT of eggs.
Even after you seperate them, she may lay several more batches.

 

[ZombiGecko]

the egg on the left appears yellowish? if thats the case, it may be a dud(if both arnt) id incubate just to be sure though . And would separate the male and female is you havnt already unless you want more eggs(which she will probably lay more anyways)

 

[loggerboots]

Thanks,

The male and female are now seperated. They belong to my kids and we had believed them all to be female until one of my kids found them "fighting" I seperated them immediately, but I guess I was a little too late. We have another female, and she was in with the male as well, but she is younger and doesn't appear to be gravid.

Now they each have their own place, the girls get the 30 gallon and the boy is in his own 20.

As mentioned, one of the eggs is yellowish, the other white, that was my concern with their attachment. During the outage, yesterday, I decided to go ahead and seperated them and they came apart easily.

I'm incubating in an improvised incubator (aquarium with an undertank heater, it's keeping the eggs at ~83-84 degrees) and we'll see what happens.

 

[Wild West Reptile]

You could candle them to see if youve got legit eggs or not. Just get yourself a pen light or any light works really...I actually use my iPhone flashlight if I need to cande them and if you see red veins in the shape of a bullseye and it glows kinda red, then they're good. If they glow yellow, they're probably bad.

 

[loggerboots]

Thanks Wild West,

I've shined a flashlight on them and they're yellow inside, so I'm assuming blanks. I didn't know if it was too early to tell, it's not clear how early you should expect to be able to see any vascular stuff developing. Can you tell on freshly laid eggs?

 

[loggerboots]

oh, well - let me answer my own question

I just 'candled' them and one of the eggs is definitely fertile. I can see a circular pattern of red at the top of the egg, like a bullseye.

The other appears to be a dud. There're a few disjointed coloured 'specs', but it doesn't form a nice pattern like the good egg. THe egg is also yellowish.

Exciting!

 

[Dimidiata]

Be sure your female is getting plenty of food right now, breeding is hard on them and unexspected breeding may be harder(since she may not have been top condition for it).

 

[loggerboots]

Thanks, she was in pretty good condition in general, they're the kids pets but I make sure they're well cared for (my kids are too young to really trust as exclusive care givers ). She was about 50G and some decent fat reserves, though 'too young' (I would guess only 8-9 months).

She went off food several days before laying the eggs, refused everything. After I found the eggs, she snapped up a couple big superworms. I've since been offering dusted crickets, but she's been just mostly sleeping and hasn't gotten much of an appetite yet.

If she doesn't get hungry in the next day or two I'll pick up some waxworms.

 

[Wild West Reptile]

Incubate them both until your sure it's a dud. Sometimes they can turn out to be good but from my experience, if they aren't showing signs within a few days then I've never had one hatch. Check it in a week....you'll know for sure by then.

 

[loggerboots]

Well, I must have screwed something up

The poor eggs are all shrivelled up. I guess I somehow messed up the humidity, though I thought I was doing it right.

I have an plastic food container with a tight fitting lid (gladware). I filled it with 100 grams of perlite and then misted the perlite until the total of perlite + water was 180 grams.

I have the plastic container in a 10 gallon aquarium with a UTH underneath. Testing showed that the temps at the surface of the perlite (the probe pressed gently into the surface, just like the eggs would be) stayed between ~82.5-84.5 consistently.

I put the eggs in there a couple days ago, nested in little indentations in the perlite. One of the eggs appeared to be fertile based on candling (small, bullseye on one side of the egg and that is the side I've faced up).

There's a lot of condensation in the container, and I think I had my ratio of water to substrate correct, so I don't know why they're collapsing... In any case, I opened it up today and sprayed the perlite until it was moist(er). Maybe I did damge them when I seperated them, though I didn't think I did at the time.

I'd guess these are too far gone, though. Well, hopefully I'll do better if she lays more. I understand that they can lay multiple fertile clutches without re-breeding.