Marking the Eggs?

[Wreptile]

If you have a bunch of eggs in one incubator, how do you know which eggs came from which parents?
Do you mark them with ink? If so, what ink is safe?

 

[Shem]

Washable crayola marker! I use it to mark wich side is up on mine!

 

[2bacop]

thats what i was going to say washable non toxic markers

 

[Wreptile]

So how do you know which eggs came from what parents?

 

[2bacop]

when you take the eggs out of the enclousure you mark them right away

 

[Shem]

You could color code them. Give each breeding adult an assigned color, then mark the two colors on the egg

 

[THE WHISPERER]

I number my breeders in the order that I get them. F- female, M-male. first female F-1, second F-2 and so on. I keep a log book with all the info in it. On the egg I just put the females number that laid them. hope that helps.

 

[Wreptile]

Well what happens, if:

You have 15 eggs incubating, and you come home to see 5 hatched. How would you know which one came from which egg?

 

[Ga_herps]

You can always keep each egg individually in portion or small deli cups. I prefer to keep them in pairs in small deli cups. When I did use to keep eggs together in big groups I would mark each egg with an individual small shape with a non-toxic marker. This shape would be recorded on its individual sticker on top of the container which also had the parents initials on the sticker. Even in the big containers I used to like to cut pieces of plastic to make tall partitions between each egg so when it did hatch the chances it wasn't mixing with the other eggs or geckos. I wish I had pics of it. It kindof looked like a egg work office

 

[acpart]

I use sharpie. I don't put much ink there and have had no problems. I mark each egg with the initial of the female (if 2 females have the same initials, I write one backwards) and that female's clutch number, so, for example, the eggs in Ruby's 2nd clutch would both be labeled "R2". I put the eggs in containers in the incubators in the order in which they were laid and can fit 9-10 eggs in each container. My geckos are such that it's pretty obvious which hatchling goes with which egg,and I have few enough geckos that it's unlikely more than 1 clutch will hatch at the same time. However, a few years ago I had 3 eggs in a container and was expecting 2 hypos het for albino and 1 super hypo. Of course, I came down 1 morning and found 3 little faces looking at me from the container. Luckily, one clearly had lighter bands. If you label your eggs accurately and make sure to place clutches which should yield very different hatchlings in the same containers, you should be OK.

ALiza

 

[Sunrise Reptile]

Last year I didn't have many eggs, so it wasn't hard to keep track. But this year I'll have way more, so each female will have a seperate, labeled container in the incubator. I have already recorded the pairings, so there'll be no question as to which pair the hatchling is from.