The WORST season in Golden Gate Geckos' history!

[Golden Gate Geckos]

This breeding season has been the most horrible season in GGG history. Not only did breeding season get started about 3 months late, but I have been plagued with ovulating females that will not breed, infertile and single egg clutches from proven females, egg failures, hatchling mortality, small non-thriving hatchlings, and deformities... some so bad I had to euthanize them right out of the egg.

This year, I have only produced about 50% of my usual number of geckos, and out of those my hatch rate is about only 60%. I have had approximately 10% of those with deformities. Geckos born with no eyes, underdeveloped limbs, and some that were so grotesquely deformed I was nauseated and felt like I was going to faint.

Until the last few weeks, I dreaded looking in my incubator!

I have been essentially out of mealworms for almost 3 months, and have been feeding my adults Superworms and the babies small supers and crickets. Since I have not been feeding mealworms, not one single egg that has hatched had any problems! Not one!!!

I can't prove anything, but I TRULY feel that whatever was/is wrong with the mealworms is affecting my geckos. I have heard there was a problem with insecticide in the bedding, and also that it is a mold spore issue that has caused the mealworms to die off. Well, many mold spores are toxic! I think that my adult breeders have been somehow poisoned by the mealworms... it would certainly explain the low fertility and deformities.

I have not changed a thing about my husbandry, feeding, supplementation, or incubation this year. Everything is the same as it always has been. I am so depressed and discouraged...

Am I the only one that is having these kinds of issues???

 

[Halley]

Well this is my first year breeding. But it seems that about 50% of my eggs have gone bad (I would have to check the records for a more accurate count, but that is most likely right on) And I have a proven breeder female that I’m using to test breed a male, she has laid 8 eggs, non have been fertile. I have also had problems with females laying outside the lay box. And I have a proven breeder that has laid only 2 one egg clutches, and each of those eggs where infertile, this being only her third year. Also I have a few females that still aren’t ovulating. And a few other geckos, that seemed to lay a 1 clutch, and decided they where done, although young and proven. I haven’t had any deformities yet, which is good, as I did have incubation fluctuations.

I just figured all of this was normal…

I hope your season can turn around!!!!!

 

[Mel&Keith]

You're not the only one. We've had lots of 2nd and 3rd year females who either would not breed or did and only laid a few clutches, others that bred and didn't lay at all. We've always had crickets around for our Cresteds so we feed both mealworms and crickets to our Leos (now only crickets). I'd say that nearly half of our females didn't lay any fertile eggs this year. A few females did lay fertile eggs that all went bad. I don't know what's going on but it is really strange that so many people are having rough seasons this year.

 

[KelliH]

I've had several deformities hatch in the past couple of months and also many eggs going bad. I've also had females that, although they had egg folicles, did not become gravid. I'm to the point where I just want my season to be over.

 

[Halley]

I don't know what's going on but it is really strange that so many people are having rough seasons this year.

Well I’m just glad this isn’t normal. I guess now I can hope for a better season, next year!


I hope other people's seasons improve!

 

[Franks_Geckos]

I have not had a multitude of issues as you have had, and I haven't had too many deformities to speak of, but some of my usually solid breeder females have let me down this year much the same way as have some of yours. I have noticed however that my adults in particular have been thriving more visibly (getting fat) since the switch to Superworms. Of course I was able to get mealies again yesterday and most of my breeders are done for the year anyway, so I may not be able to get too much data to compare since most were on mealies during the better part of the laying season. I imagine though that if the eggs laid while the females were on Supers have a markedly higher hatch rate than previous clutches or other females that laid earlier in the year, some conclusions may be drawn.

 

[eyelids]

That really sucks...

I've been very lucky so far this year and have a 100% hatch rate... Egg production has been almost too good... Hopefully this carries through for my Bell group, but I already have two infertiles...

Btw, my adults have always eaten supers...

 

[KelliH]

I'm beginning to wonder about the mealworm issue myself... The past few years have been great for me with practically zero deformities and now this. What the heck is going on?

 

[yellermelon]

Hmm this is my first "real" season...I thought it was just me. I feed only mealworms also. I have had a few deformaties, nothing major thank god. And a pretty big number of bad eggs. Once again I thought it was my "noob-ness" maybe not. Now that you guess are dreading the rest of the season I am excited to think next year i could do much better...DO you think the mealworms we are getting now are still "bad" or has this problem been resolved?

 

[brad.a.c]

I'm no breeder but I'm really sorry that you've had such a bad season. Keep your head up and next season will turn up for you!

 

[shadowx362]

I am very sorry to hear all you guys have to go through this. I have been having a great season compare to last year, but I never fed meal worms to my adults just crickets. I only fed my babies meal worms and they seemed like not growing very well. I have since ran out of meal worms and just been feeding crickets and the newer babies are growing much faster than the older ones. I just hope next years season gets better.

 

[acpart]

I have also had a season that isn't as good as expected with some of the same issues: females ovulating late, eggs infertile or going bad, a number of "dead in the egg" or (this past week) geckos hatching and dying just out of the egg, only 2 deformities in dead geckos, formerly reliable geckos laying outside the lay box or not laying at all.

In my case, the adults get primarily crickets with some of them supplementing with mealworms. I breed my own mealworms and use progeckos gutload. I don't think I've bought mealworms commercially in about 8 months and my mealworms are breeding well.

Last season I did not have problems with time or number of clutches laid, but in the middle of the season there was a huge number of infertile eggs. At this time last year I had 13 clutches in the incubator (from 4 females) but only 4 clutches hatched. Most were infertile, not dead in the egg.

Without taking into account other people's problem seasons, I have some theories about what has caused my problems, but don't have any idea how accurate they are. They include:
--less success than previous seasons because the number of breeding males and females has increased greatly for me so there are more things that can go wrong
--males tiring of females and not mating, with females continuing to lay clutches that have not been fertilized (I have been experimenting with separating the males from the females for a few days and then re-introducing)
--females that laid extremely well their first season and then "burned out" (one of my least productive females this year had 20/20 eggs hatch two years ago, about 12 hatch last year and has not yet produced any hatchlings this year)
--I didn't switch out the perlite from my incubator containers; maybe that is causing problems.

Any insights would be useful.

Aliza

 

[Kristi23]

This is my first year breeding also. I've had about 6-8 bad eggs and had my first full term dead hatchilng today. My one proven breeder has had 2 clutches of one egg each and seems to be done. I've had a few females over a year old not ovulate yet. But I've also had 7 healthy hatchlings so far that seem to be doing great. No deformities yet. The hatchling today that was dead didn't seem to have any deformities. The egg just started leaking all the yolk out, but the baby wasn't alive. I feed dubias and mealworms. I am not really sure what's normal since this is my first year.

 

[mynewturtle]

Bad bad season here.

I have 2 more females being bred. I have a lot of geckos I let a lot of them not breed after the horrible year for the first quartre. I bred about 20 maybe 25 females and i had 5 or 6 males do the job. 80 eggs (incredibly low for 20ish females estimate thats like 2 clutches each i mightve had more 80 is a rough estimate) I had a bunch of single clutches, some only 3 who laid 7, 8 last year. I had about 50 infertiles only 10 eggs left incubating. I have only changed one thing, and that was this year I cooled the geckos I can't imagine that did anything. Crickets, supers, silks, mealies, and wax worms I don't know what went wrong. Just happy its not only me. Out of the 40 females 20 were proven, 20 weren't.

Very disapointed I really wanted to hatch Canada's first, and the worlds third Bell blazzing blizzard, or even a bell patty. Next year will be better I hope.

 

[Nigel4less]

Out of my 200 something eggs I recieved this season only about 80 hatchlings hatched. I was lucky enough to hit the odds on a few select projects, but I also had a terrible start. My first SHTCT of the season hatched out at 1.7 grams and failed to thrive. I also hatched out 3 Tremper Blazing Blizzards that died within 2 weeks of hatching, causing me to stop my TBB project. I really do want this year to be over.

 

[Ccrashca069]

This is my 1st season. I have now had 23 infertile eggs, 1 premie I had to put down and 1 egg still incubating ( day 77). My season isn't done though. I have 3 females with eggs and I have a couple more females I am thinking of breeding in a month. I have also todate have hatched 13 healthy hatchlings.

 

[PacHerp]

It is so crazy that the community is plagued with these problems this year. I'm sorry that everyone seems to be having such a bum season.

I have been plagued with ovulating females that will not breed, infertile and single egg clutches from proven females, egg failures, hatchling mortality, small non-thriving hatchlings, and deformities... some so bad I had to euthanize them right out of the egg.

Geckos born with no eyes, underdeveloped limbs, and some that were so grotesquely deformed I was nauseated and felt like I was going to faint.

I too think that this is a littttle bit odd.

I have been there standing at the incubator with Marcia as she opened a container only to find a deformed animal... and then immediately had to euthanize it.

I can't prove anything, but I TRULY feel that whatever was/is wrong with the mealworms is affecting my geckos. I think that my adult breeders have been somehow poisoned by the mealworms... it would certainly explain the low fertility and deformities.

I also share this opinion...

I have not changed a thing about my husbandry, feeding, supplementation, or incubation this year. Everything is the same as it always has been.

I have seen Marcia's animals, breeders and non-breeders... they are as healthy as they can be... some I'm sure are close to 90 grams! I know how much she cares for each and every one of her animals and how much she cares about their well-being and health.

Am I the only one that is having these kinds of issues???

All of this said, I really think we should talk with each other and try to get to the bottom of all of this. I'd be interested to learn more about what is going on with the Mealworm shortage and what EXACTLY happened to cause it to begin with.

Signing out...

 

[Sunshine State Exotics]

Except for the deformities, I agree. We haven't had a single deformity. However, we are struggling just to get eggs let alone fertile ones. When I finally get a set of eggs, they mold on me. We've had a lot of single egg clutches too. I have more breeders this year, but will probably produce half the geckos as usual.

I've been wondering what was up. I think your on to something! I'm not ordering anymore mealworms for awhile. It will be supers and crickets from here on out.

 

[malt_geckos]

sorry to hear about your losses Marcia. What a bummer...

We have lost one female just randomly...she was fine and then all of the sudden we found her dead one day. We have lost quite a few eggs from infertility and it seems like one out of every three clutches doesn't hatch. ??? We don't think it's our methods either...we have practiced with making appropriate moisture in our vermiculite and we invested in good incubators as well. We have been feeding mealies and got 5000 that we've spread out for awhile. We are feeding roaches and crickets to our babies and small mealies we have raised ourselves.

We have had no deformities but we've had TONS of single egg clutches...quite confusing actually and pretty much a bummer.

Where is everyone getting their supers from????!

I hope all is well with you and things look up.

 

[acpart]

I'm hoping that more people post who are having good seasons (if there are any) so we can get a better sense of the extent of the problem. If someone is better than I at designing research studies, it would be great to produce a form here so everyone could submit in the same format their stats for the season. Then we need a statistician to analyze it and let us know what's happened (that doesn't tell us why it happened, but will give us some data to work with).

Aliza