Well for most of you who don't know, I've bred leopard geckos for nearly eight years now, on a very low scale comparatively. I first started off when I was working at a local pet shop. ([email protected]. & Jeremy aka Tokays unlimited) should be familiar with Sea World pet center in Salem,NH).
I started out with wild caughts.
This guy is my only remaining offspring from wild caught parents a hypo none the less, who's parents took about a year and a half to rehabilitate and completely rid of hefty loads of internal parasites. (4 years of age)
Once completely rid of the parasites I started breeding and selling off to the store and to other surrounding pet stores. When I first started out I put the eggs in a deep bucket w/ out a cover and berried them about an inch or so down in some moistened ground coconut shell, bed a beast etc.etc. and would throw them up on a shelf. (noobish I know) I got three or four seasons worth of clutches of anywhere from 12- 18 eggs per year from the wild caught trio with no ill effects.
Now with that all said here is the problem.
I hatched out this gecko today. It was incubated at a constant 82 degrees for female.
He has absolutely no eyelids and the head is extremely long and pointy.(wicked bummed)
I have read and seen and read again all of the debates about this deformity. Ideas have been thrown around about there being too much supplementation of vitamin A in the diet or contradicting insinuations stating that there wasn't enough vitamin A. Even the tremper incubation method has been blamed. In my experiences this cannot be true. If all else fails, I would at least like to lay to rest the possibility that this deformality is caused by fluctuating temperatures. I belive this is not the case at all in this particular deformity. Although I didn't have the luxury of temp guns back then, the fluctuating temperatures in the store I worked at were immense. Daily the temperatures in that store ranged from 65 degrees in the morning to around 80 during early to late evening. Last season I tried the tremper incubation method myself for the first time. Although I hatched out an over abundance of males LOL and am currently rearing about 20 healthy offspring now juveniles. I never had any deformities such as this.
Another factor that may be of some help is that there is no possible way that this eyelid deformity was caused by an over abundance of vitamine A. I strictly use miner-all 1, every feeding for hatchlings, every other feeding for breeding females, and I make sure the juvies get it at least twice a week. As a multi vitamine I use Rep cal's herptivite with beta carotene. I supplement with this once a month irregardless of the animals age or breeding status. Although beta carotene converts to vitamine A when consumed, I don't dust with the herptivite nearly enough to insinuate vitamin A toxicity is the culprit.
Which leaves me with two other hypothesis for the eyelid deformaty.
1st being the possibility that the geckos are not receiving enough vitamin A.
2nd which I think is the most likely scenario of the two, that it is simply genetic. If in fact it is genetic I (speculate) that it may even in fact be somewhat dominant. More test breedings will need to be done on that. Hopefully the deformed gecko will do just fine and be female. I will then breed it to my male whom is the offspring of wild caughts. The deformed gecko pictured above was the result of breeding a double het bell x red stripe x an unrelated double het bell stripe from separate breeders. I use the term "unrelated" in the essence that the pair were from two separate breeders. I'm looking foward to everyones personal speculations as well as experiences with this issue.
Thanks,
Ian S
I started out with wild caughts.
This guy is my only remaining offspring from wild caught parents a hypo none the less, who's parents took about a year and a half to rehabilitate and completely rid of hefty loads of internal parasites. (4 years of age)
Once completely rid of the parasites I started breeding and selling off to the store and to other surrounding pet stores. When I first started out I put the eggs in a deep bucket w/ out a cover and berried them about an inch or so down in some moistened ground coconut shell, bed a beast etc.etc. and would throw them up on a shelf. (noobish I know) I got three or four seasons worth of clutches of anywhere from 12- 18 eggs per year from the wild caught trio with no ill effects.
Now with that all said here is the problem.
I hatched out this gecko today. It was incubated at a constant 82 degrees for female.
He has absolutely no eyelids and the head is extremely long and pointy.(wicked bummed)
I have read and seen and read again all of the debates about this deformity. Ideas have been thrown around about there being too much supplementation of vitamin A in the diet or contradicting insinuations stating that there wasn't enough vitamin A. Even the tremper incubation method has been blamed. In my experiences this cannot be true. If all else fails, I would at least like to lay to rest the possibility that this deformality is caused by fluctuating temperatures. I belive this is not the case at all in this particular deformity. Although I didn't have the luxury of temp guns back then, the fluctuating temperatures in the store I worked at were immense. Daily the temperatures in that store ranged from 65 degrees in the morning to around 80 during early to late evening. Last season I tried the tremper incubation method myself for the first time. Although I hatched out an over abundance of males LOL and am currently rearing about 20 healthy offspring now juveniles. I never had any deformities such as this.
Another factor that may be of some help is that there is no possible way that this eyelid deformity was caused by an over abundance of vitamine A. I strictly use miner-all 1, every feeding for hatchlings, every other feeding for breeding females, and I make sure the juvies get it at least twice a week. As a multi vitamine I use Rep cal's herptivite with beta carotene. I supplement with this once a month irregardless of the animals age or breeding status. Although beta carotene converts to vitamine A when consumed, I don't dust with the herptivite nearly enough to insinuate vitamin A toxicity is the culprit.
Which leaves me with two other hypothesis for the eyelid deformaty.
1st being the possibility that the geckos are not receiving enough vitamin A.
2nd which I think is the most likely scenario of the two, that it is simply genetic. If in fact it is genetic I (speculate) that it may even in fact be somewhat dominant. More test breedings will need to be done on that. Hopefully the deformed gecko will do just fine and be female. I will then breed it to my male whom is the offspring of wild caughts. The deformed gecko pictured above was the result of breeding a double het bell x red stripe x an unrelated double het bell stripe from separate breeders. I use the term "unrelated" in the essence that the pair were from two separate breeders. I'm looking foward to everyones personal speculations as well as experiences with this issue.
Thanks,
Ian S
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