Question...Opinions needed.

[o0 Ryan 0o]

One of our Raining Red females is throwing some babies with tail issues. We haven't had any issues all year (knock on wood) so we're thinking it's most likely specific to this female.

We have one with a really bad curve at the end of her tail...it's not like a kink. Also, she hatched with this.

We also recently hatched one with a stub tail.

I don't know if this is a fluke or if the female is going to continue throwing babies with tail issues. We have two clutches that hatched so far and one from each clutch had this issue. The clutchmate to the big curl tail gal, is roughly 3 times smaller. I'm not including her in the issue because sometimes the hatchlings just take a while to really figure out the whole mealworm bowl feeding dealio.

So I guess my question is. Should these be adoption geckos before knowing if it's a consistent issue with the female, or should I sell them at a discounted price and mention that breeding is their decision? I don't think it's a really bad issue, I just don't know if this is going to consistently happen or not.

Thanks for any input.

 

[Grinning Geckos]

IMO, Turnip tail (stub tails) run in certain lines. The one you show really doesn't look bad....but it's still young. I haven't seen enough curly tails to form any sort of opinion. If it's all from one female, I'd retire her. If not, a reduced price isn't a bad idea - for the curly tails at least.

 

[Jeremy Letkey]

That is an odd one. I would definatley hold onto them a little longer than normal. See what else the female in question throws. With that said, I would also disclose the tail issue at the time of sale.

I am also wondering if it is not something to do with the female being a first year breeder? What have her clutches been like?
i.e. one bigger egg and one smaller egg. Both eggs normal. How many eggs and clutches? I wonder if one egg got all of the right DNA coding and all the nutrients and the other got stiffed?

I can only guess that the female in question is from me? So please keep me updated. I try my damnedest to make sure to outcross and I have not had any major issues yet. Also if the female is from me, I would love the chance to make it up to you guys.

 

[o0 Ryan 0o]

Hey Jeremy, she is the Dot striped one from you. I'm sorry, I didn't mean for it to come across in a bad if it did. I just wanted to know if we should hang on to the curly tailed one now after the stub tail gal popped out. The bigger one is 20g, and I haven't been sure what we should do with her. I just didn't want to go ahead and sell her if it could be recurring, so I thought I'd run it by you guys.

As for the female, yeah this her first year. Her first 2 clutches have been normal and both eggs from both clutches hatched. Nothing funky in size or anything. We don't have any more eggs from her in the incubator though, she skipped her last clutch. She eats like a champ. She just takes forever to lay, always over a month between clutches. She's gravid now and I've been waiting on her for the past 1.5 weeks, but she hasn't laid them yet...hopefully soon. I wish she would shoot out these eggs a little faster.

Jeremy you're too nice, don't sweat it. Hopefully we can get some more eggs from her this year and find out what the deal is. We'll definitely keep you posted, it just may take 2+ months for another update. We'll hang on to the curly and stub tailed girls too.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

As far as the one with the short tail, I honestly would not worry about it. It's definitely NOT a turnip tail, and some geckos just have shorter tails than others. Give her a few months and see.

The little one with the curl at the end of her tail may not be genetic, but rather congenital. Sometimes they just grow funny while developing in the egg. I'd sell her with full disclosure at a reduced price.

 

[o0 Ryan 0o]

Thanks for the input Marcia. I was thinking the same thing...maybe she was just curled in the egg funky and it's just sort of stuck that way. I thought she would have grown out of it faster, but I guess leos tail tips don't get very fat.

I feel really dumb now. I weighed her tonight when I was seeing who we could bring to the show this weekend. I was like what the heck, I'll see what everyone thinks. This was our first little issue this year, and I very well may be over playing it...Sorry Jeremy. I really didn't mean for this to sound bad if it did. We were just debating on what to do about selling her.

Hopefully we can get her to throw some more eggs before the season is over.

 

[KelliH]

I've hatched out babies like both of those before. I don't think it's genetic either, and I agree with everything Marcia already said.