My Eggs for 08

[mcvancleave]

Here is a pic of my eggs From this year. I have double now but these were laid 1 day apart so they are housed together.
I am using moss to keep humidity and honestly this is working as well for me as vermiculite. Figured i would try this and see what happens Eggs have been in about 2 weeks @ 84F. I get nice pinkish red when i do the egg light on 2 of them, 1 egg shows a little pink and the other is yellow, I am told the yellow is unfurtile but i cannot see myself tossing it until the others hatch. It has not deflated and there is no mold on them plus i do not want to take the chance of seperating the eggs when i found them in the laying box they were connected already.

http://www.gotboredproductions.com/pics/leopard_geckos/eggs/eggs.JPG

 

[david13]

t5hats weird, that they were connected..

good luck and keep us updated

 

[mcvancleave]

i guess she laid them on top pf each other. They could be seperated but i just do not want to take a chance by pulling them apart

 

[shadowx362]

your moss looks too wet! I dont think its sopposto be that wet but I never incubated with moss.

 

[mcvancleave]

it was too wet. Noticed it after the picture. All fixed now and eggs are still ok as far as i can tell. 3 show redish pink with a light and 1 is yellow

 

[mcvancleave]

On the note of eggs I know that if an egg is yellow for unfertile and pink being fertile. Now I read that the eggs are suppose to grow. My eggs are now about 3.5 weeks old maybe 4 and I look at them maybe too much and I cannot tell there is any growth. Is this a growth that I should be able to really tell by looking them or is it so slow and gradual that you really cannot look at and tell. My incubator temp was set about 82-84F, I wanted girls so that is the temp that I read that I needed. Also when holding say a pen light to them I cannot see a Leo just nice pink, I am afraid of using anything stronger. A pen light is about as bright as half of one of those mini AA mag lights incase someone wanted to know. Any input on this rambling would be great thanks

 

[goReptiles]

Egg growth is slow and gradual. If you're checking them daily, it will be hard to see the actual growth. Kind of like when you see a child after a month of not seeing him, and they seem to have had a huge growth spurt.

Even if an egg is yellow tinted when candled, leave it in the incubator as a just in case. You never know what may pop out. Don't throw away any eggs unless they're badly molded or dehydrated.

For all females, I'd leave the incubator at 80-82. I like leaving my female incubator at 82 without fluctuations, and I tend to get all females.

I use pen lights to candle the eggs. I'd rather use what I have than buy a candling flashlight for $20. You usually cannot see the embryo until far into incubation. Usually, you won't see much until the last week. At some point before that you won't see anything as the gecko will be blocking the shadows. So, don't worry if you're not seeing a gecko, remember your eggs are only 3.5 weeks.

Personally, I've never used moss as an incubation medium, so I don't know the outcome of it, but I'd like to tak the time to recommend vermiculite, perlite, or Hatch-Rite, instead.

 

[mcvancleave]

that was the plan. This was a bedding house until my ceramic one came in from fedex. I waited too long. I thought i would just take out my little nest watch the humidity the best i can (why i look daily) and see where it leads. I tired to move them but was scared of how soft they were was not expecting them to be that soft. I have the stuff to move them but it looked good. This will be a good experiment for me even if it fails a good lesson i hope to learn from this.

 

[fallen_angel]

On the note of eggs I know that if an egg is yellow for unfertile and pink being fertile. Now I read that the eggs are suppose to grow. My eggs are now about 3.5 weeks old maybe 4 and I look at them maybe too much and I cannot tell there is any growth. Is this a growth that I should be able to really tell by looking them or is it so slow and gradual that you really cannot look at and tell. My incubator temp was set about 82-84F, I wanted girls so that is the temp that I read that I needed. Also when holding say a pen light to them I cannot see a Leo just nice pink, I am afraid of using anything stronger. A pen light is about as bright as half of one of those mini AA mag lights incase someone wanted to know. Any input on this rambling would be great thanks

You won't necessarily see a leo inside of the egg..after a few days you will see veins and I'm sure at the age of your eggs, there are veins everywhere! Once the egg gets close to hatching, you will see a dark shadow, and that is the leo

Also, I can tell you the the size of the egg (pretty much) doubles in its last week before hatching.

in this picture, the one with the blue mark on the left is two days old and the other two with the black marks are 24 days old. You can see there isn't much of a size difference.

The large egg in this picture is the same egg from the picture that was noted above. This egg hatched within one hour of this picture being taken, but it was this size for about a week total.

 

[mcvancleave]

thanks fot all the information and the pics. What i was worried about was seeing a growth. i can still only see a "vein" here and there. I need a brighter light i just see the halo we will say of red and pink no definate veins

 

[fallen_angel]

I see your problem.. You can manipulate a regular flashlight to candle the eggs.. Just put foil around the top of it and poke a tiny hole in the middle. Also remember that when candling, your light needs to be close enough to the egg so that it is actually touching it. If you're not close enough, it can be hard to see everything.

 

[mcvancleave]

I will try that when I get home. I hope not to be disappointed if for some reason the eggs wind up to be unfertile. I have been watching the eggs allot. I had one of my Leos to lay eggs they were yellow in color (I swear they were) and now I see pink in them. Is this a common thing with the eggs that when laid it could take a day to really tell if fertile. I got all my eggs even if they looked yellow. I read as long as they do not deflate or get allot of mold on them they may be good so here are my fingers crossed.

 

[fallen_angel]

All eggs do candle yellow on the first day..even on the second day, you may not notice anything but a small pink spot, but that pink spot will turn into a little baby gecko most of the time! Eggs aren't entirely pink until they are about two weeks old or so.

and I agree, even if the egg candles yellow, I would keep it as long as it still looks good. However, the times that we have had infertile eggs, they all have looked pretty bad, so we just disposed of them right away.

 

[fallen_angel]

***not two weeks, one week...

We even had eggs that were half pink, half yellow for awhile...just as long as there is ANY pink in there, I would consider it fertile.. Our infertile ones did not have a spot of pink anywhere to be found.

 

[mcvancleave]

dumb question. As i look at these eggs on the forum here are the color difference due to the camera, lighting substrate, ect. Reason i ask is most of my eggs are just plain white

 

[fallen_angel]

Yes, lighting in the room and the camera make the color change..Some of my eggs are brown because the female laid them in vermiculite and buried them, so the vermiculite stuck to the eggs... Some of my eggs are white, but that's only if they don't get burried before I find them

 

[mcvancleave]

Thanks for the reply. Seems everything is going in the right direction at this point I have 8 eggs. I removed my male from the tank for the rest of the month to give me more time to get my building done, or at least get an idea how I want to handle all these new babies. My friends and family that wanted a Leo are really excited for these eggs to hatch.

 

[fallen_angel]

Very cool, congrats on your eggs and keep us updated!

 

[mcvancleave]

where is a good place to get vermicule substrate online. Local pet store does not carry it. or should i do hatchrite

 

[fallen_angel]

We ordered from Home Harvest Garden Supply

This link will take you straight to the vermiculite page. I recommend getting 8 dry quarts to start you off, we only got 4 and ran out pretty quickly.