Humidity too high, a few eggs turning pink

[lytlesnake]

I had a few Albino Fat Tail eggs that were denting. So over the last few weeks it looks like I sprayed the vermiculite too much. It was way too wet! A few eggs have turned pink. I read that this means they may have swelled from too much humidity, which can cause the embryo to die. I just hatched a perfectly healthy gecko in this container, but two of the eggs may be swelling too much. A few of my Cremesicle or APTOR eggs in another container have the same problem.

I feel so stupid! I should have just left them alone. I've moved them to containers with proper humidity. Is there any way to tell if the pink eggs still have live geckos in them? Candling? Or should I just leave them and see what happens?

 

[acpart]

If it's truly a humidity issue, it seems to me that taking the cover off the container and leaving it in the incubator for a few hours should dry them out without disturbing the temperature too much. Alternatively, you could prepare another container with the correct humidity, leave it in the incubator for awhile so it warms up to the correct temperature and then transfer the eggs into it.

Aliza

 

[fallen_angel]

Yeah, I would candle the eggs to see how they look now.

 

[mcvancleave]

is the pink color mean the shells are pink. Just asking because now i want to look at my eggs now and hope

 

[fallen_angel]

Possibly. It's not abnormal for fertile eggs to look pinkish, even during the day.

 

[lytlesnake]

If it's truly a humidity issue, it seems to me that taking the cover off the container and leaving it in the incubator for a few hours should dry them out without disturbing the temperature too much.

Thanks for the suggestion. After I read your reply, I put only the pink eggs in another new container and left the lid off. After about 6 hours it seems to be working already. The eggs look more white and less pink.

 

[lytlesnake]

is the pink color mean the shells are pink. Just asking because now i want to look at my eggs now and hope

Yes the shells are pink. The containers were way too moist, so I'm pretty sure the eggs were swelling due to too much humidity. The embryos or developing geckos may have already died, I'm not sure. There is no mold though, so hopefully they're alright. Time will tell.

 

[fallen_angel]

Good luck!

 

[lytlesnake]

Well, drying them out seemed to work pretty well. The eggs became more white and less pink. The bottom of one egg looked like it might be going bad though. So I dried a few of them out some more, and unfortunately I left them without a lid for a little too long. They started denting/shriveling. So now I've covered them with vermiculite and misted it on top. They're probably ruined now.

I feel like I may have killed a couple perfectly good eggs. Then again, the humidity in the containers had been way too high, and the fact that they were as pink as they were might mean that they were already ruined. I'm pretty upset with myself, but I suppose this can happen in nature sometimes too. I'm not going to beat myself up too much over it, but I do feel guilty for causing these eggs to go bad. In the future I'll just get the humidity right at the start of incubation and leave it alone. I kept misting because I thought they were too dry, and before I knew it they were too wet, which caused the swelling. Luckily I have more eggs and lots of geckos that I can breed, so it's not the end of the world. Still, the probable loss of these developing geckos really makes me feel sad for them.

 

[LadyGecko]

Sorry to read about the problem that you are having with those eggs
I know that this is not much consolation-but I see it as better to lose the egg and an embryo that is not even close to being fully developed than to lose a hatchling

It does suck both ways
:main_thumbsdown:
Good Luck with your future eggs!!

 

[lytlesnake]

Thanks Sandy. I didn't have any problems last year, so I'm not sure why I let this happen. Perhaps I should go back to deeper containers so there's a deeper layer of vermiculite to better retain the moisture. The ones I'm using this year are not as tall as the ones I used last year. Early on this year, a couple eggs looked a little dry, which is why I started misting them every few days. Had I just left them alone this probably wouldn't have happened.