Myth Buster: Mac snow temp. sexing

[jakemyster44]

I think that there are quite a few people who are confused about the idea that mac snows cannot be accurately temp. sexed. I have not hatched any macs yet, but I will next season, so unfortunatly I cannot speak of my personal findings. However, there have been numerous people who breed macs that say they have not had any differences with macs than with any other morph. Obveously temp. sexing is never 100% acurate, but most people say that the majority of hatchlings hatch out what they were incubated for.
To get some hard evidence I decided to include a poll. Please only vote if you have, or currently are breeding Mac Snows. Thanks!

 

[fallen_angel]

Well we've only hatched 11 total Snows this past season, but only three were female. However, we did incubate at temps between 84 and 86 for most of them. Even still, one of the females we hatched was incubated at 88 degrees, and even after incubating at 82 degrees, we still got a male.

I've heard a lot of people say they had no problems with getting females when incubating for female, and males when incubating for male. It seems to me that the temp sexing is not so much of a problem for most people, but just like anything else, things can and will happen and you won't necessarily get what you incubated for.

We even had a SHTCTB incubated at 82 degrees that turned out male. Could just be our crazy luck.

 

[thestack510]

I have heard this rumor. Mine are still too young to visually sex, but most people I've talked to say they have had no problem temp. sexing Snows. I can't visually sex mine yet, so I didn't vote.

 

[rubym]

So far out of like 22 mack babies, we had one that was incubated female that actually turned out to be a male. I have heard lots of people say that they are hard to temp sex but so far I have been lucky.

 

[GroovyGeckos.com]

It is weird, but everyone has had different results with temp sexing Macks. We were one of the breeders that did have problems.

In the first two generations, I hatched mostly the opposite sex when incubating for a certain sex. So I have hatched both males and females from male temps, but most were female. Same thing with female temps, I`de hatch more males.

I think that since more "normal acting" blood has been bred into them over the years, they are now acting more "as they should". I still have one of my original Macks, I`de be curious to see if his next owner will be able to temp sex his babies.

I think it goes without saying though, that no matter what the morph, temp sexing is not 100% accurate anyways. So this could have just been "bad luck" for those of us, that had this type of problem. However, I never had the same problem with any other geckos coming from the same incubator.

 

[fallen_angel]

Very well said

 

[randy p]

I wonder if its line breed,co dominant ,or dominant .Witch ones had the problems .And if there is a pattern .Randy

 

[Albey]

It is not a Myth. The first person to bring it to my attention was Kelli Hammack. Some of you may have heard of her. We were talking on the phone one day a few years ago and she asked me if I was having any trouble with my Mack Snows and Super Snows with the sexes not coming out right. She told me she was getting Males at the low temps. and Females at the high temps. I hadn’t even thought to check. When I incubate I mark the egg box with a Male sign if it is in the incubator I keep at 88.3 degrees. When the babies hatch out of that incubator I automatically mark them as Males. I started checking all of the Mack babies I had hatched and found I had also produced Males at the low temps. and Females at the high temps. It was quite a shock since I had never had any other Leopard Gecko morph act that way.

In case you are wondering if I could have had an incubator problem the answer is absolutely not. The incubator I use to produce Male Leopard Geckos is also the incubator I use to incubate my Ball Python eggs. I use a Helix Thermostat set at 88.3 degrees that never fluctuates more than a degree. Just to be sure I monitor it with a high-low thermometer that has a two temp. alert alarm on it. If the temp. gets below 87 it goes off and if it goes higher than 90 it goes off. The only time it ever goes off is when I am checking for hatchlings or to see how the Ball Python eggs are doing and leave the door open too long. The Female eggs are just left in the Reptile Room on a shelf. I use two 1500 watt Ranco Thermostats to control an Air Conditioner that comes on if the temp. goes above 82 degrees and the other one controls a Pelonis Disk Furnace that is set to come on if the temp. goes below 79 degrees. It is quite an efficient setup. The other thing is I am in that room all day and night long at various times doing different thing that need to be done. I can tell you right now I know if the temp. gets over 83 with out any alarm or anything going off. :main_laugh:

I reiterate it is not a myth.

 

[jakemyster44]

wow, I have to say I am really suprised. Albey, any idea why it happens for some people and not for others? You would think that there would be some hidden genetics or something that makes certain geckos lay eggs that tend to hatch out as the opposite sex that they were incubated for... I'm glad that this was cleared up!

 

[tangerineman]

haven't posted a reply to the thread in the poll because...

my original breeding trio acquired from amgecko was bred (one male/ 2 females) to produce temp sexed geckos that were exactly what i incubated for, at 82 and at 88, respectively for females and males,

this season i bred the male mack het tremper from that breeding group to three females:
an eclipse non het tremper, a rev stripe het raptor, and a PRS not het tremper, and the babies from the eclipse&het crosses turned out to NOT sex correctly in 3/4 of the cases, and this was only with the mack offspring

In my case was very beneficial, since i predicted more babies and I had less turnout . I accidentally thought i incubated too many males.
turns out to have worked out ok (more females less males)

I am using two incubators (one male /one female), both controlled by HELIX DBS1000, and very very consistent.

I cannot see any logic to this,

-Duane

 

[yellermelon]

I had a few oddballs last year not being what I wanted them to be. My mack snows did appear to have a larger percent of ts geckos turning out to be the other gender.

 

[2.1SRR.YYC]

I haven't compiled my numbers yet but here are my thoughts....

When I incubate MS's at the male temps (88 F) I get close to 98% males. When I incubate MS's at the female temps (82.5 F) I get approx 75% female and about 25% male.

I don't know if you would still call this temp sexing or not? I voted "No Problem" as I consider this temp sexing as you have a certain amount of control over the outcome. Not as much as other morphs but you do have some control.

BTW, I used a NS Incubator with a Herpstat Pro to control the temps last year.

 

[Gecko Euphoria]

I've never had a problem with macks. I hatched out 77 macks last year and only 10 turned out different from what they were incubated for so thats pretty good odds to me.

I think that there are quite a few people who are confused about the idea that mac snows cannot be accurately temp. sexed. I have not hatched any macs yet, but I will next season, so unfortunatly I cannot speak of my personal findings. However, there have been numerous people who breed macs that say they have not had any differences with macs than with any other morph. Obveously temp. sexing is never 100% acurate, but most people say that the majority of hatchlings hatch out what they were incubated for.
To get some hard evidence I decided to include a poll. Please only vote if you have, or currently are breeding Mac Snows. Thanks!

 

[phalanx]

In 2008 I had 86 mack (super) snow albinos and I only had 5 who were not the gender for which I incubated them. Coincidence or not but 4 of the 5 are supersnows.