Tokay eggs...

[Eniala]

Hi,

I work at a pet store that had two tokay geckos dropped off a month or so ago. Today when we were cleaning cages, we found 4 eggs attached to the side of a decoration which they hide in. We took the decoration out and we have it with the eggs attached in a styrofoam container with a heat mat under it. The eggs are already completely hard. A few questions I have,

1) when one of the other girls took the decoration out she flipped it upside down to look at the eggs. We flipped it back over and told her we weren't sure if tokays are like ball pythons eggs at all in that they have an air pocket at the top and if you flip them over they will lose their pocket...is this also true with tokays?

2) The eggs couldn't have been in there for too long but at what point do they turn hard? Could they atleast be a few days old or does that happen pretty quickly?

3) Is a styrofoam container with a lid and heat mat enough of an incubator? we put aspen in the bottom and sprayed it down a bit, are the eggs sensitive at all to humidity since they are hard eggs and not soft?

Any help with this is much appreciated as this was a big surprise but it would be great to get them to hatch.

 

[Dog Shrink]

http://www.google.com/search?um=1&hl=en&gbv=2&q=leopard+gecko+male+female&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw#sclient=psy&hl=en&gbv=2&source=hp&q=hatching+tokay+gecko+eggs&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=4b3eeabb4c23868d

 

[T-ReXx]

Hi,

I work at a pet store that had two tokay geckos dropped off a month or so ago. Today when we were cleaning cages, we found 4 eggs attached to the side of a decoration which they hide in. We took the decoration out and we have it with the eggs attached in a styrofoam container with a heat mat under it. The eggs are already completely hard. A few questions I have,

1) when one of the other girls took the decoration out she flipped it upside down to look at the eggs. We flipped it back over and told her we weren't sure if tokays are like ball pythons eggs at all in that they have an air pocket at the top and if you flip them over they will lose their pocket...is this also true with tokays?

2) The eggs couldn't have been in there for too long but at what point do they turn hard? Could they atleast be a few days old or does that happen pretty quickly?

3) Is a styrofoam container with a lid and heat mat enough of an incubator? we put aspen in the bottom and sprayed it down a bit, are the eggs sensitive at all to humidity since they are hard eggs and not soft?

Any help with this is much appreciated as this was a big surprise but it would be great to get them to hatch.

1) Moving eggs is always dangerous. If they weren't flipped after the first two weeks, they should be ok. All you can do is incubate as see what happens. I'd advise moving them as little as possible though.

2) Eggs harden up within a few hours of being laid.

3) Tokay eggs need to be incubated in the mid to upper 80s(86 is perfect) with 65-90% humidity. You need to monitor temps and humidity, I can't say if your setup will work unless I know what levels are. Tokay eggs aren't as sensitive to humidity as soft shelled eggs, but they do need at least 65%.

 

[Eniala]

http://www.google.com/search?um=1&hl=en&gbv=2&q=leopard+gecko+male+female&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw#sclient=psy&hl=en&gbv=2&source=hp&q=hatching+tokay+gecko+eggs&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=4b3eeabb4c23868d

thanks but I did that and found whatever other information I needed thats why I came here to get my questions answered that I couldn't get answered elsewhere...

1) Moving eggs is always dangerous. If they weren't flipped after the first two weeks, they should be ok. All you can do is incubate as see what happens. I'd advise moving them as little as possible though.

2) Eggs harden up within a few hours of being laid.

3) Tokay eggs need to be incubated in the mid to upper 80s(86 is perfect) with 65-90% humidity. You need to monitor temps and humidity, I can't say if your setup will work unless I know what levels are. Tokay eggs aren't as sensitive to humidity as soft shelled eggs, but they do need at least 65%.

Thank you. The eggs are not going to be moved from now on since they are all set up in the incubator. The temperature where the eggs were was right at 70 degrees and our incubator is holding steady in the mid 80's. Do you think that it may have already affected them being in that low of temperatures? Like I said I don't know how long they've been there. We are monitoring humidity now so I can let you know where that is. From what we've been reading they average 2 eggs and we got 4 so hopefully they do alright.

 

[T-ReXx]

Thank you. The eggs are not going to be moved from now on since they are all set up in the incubator. The temperature where the eggs were was right at 70 degrees and our incubator is holding steady in the mid 80's. Do you think that it may have already affected them being in that low of temperatures? Like I said I don't know how long they've been there. We are monitoring humidity now so I can let you know where that is. From what we've been reading they average 2 eggs and we got 4 so hopefully they do alright.

Tokay eggs are pretty hardy. The female usually lays where ever she feels conditions are right, so I think they'll be ok. A few days to a week at 70 shouldn't kill the embryos that early in development. As there are four eggs, I'm willing to bet those are two seperate clutches, how long were the geckos in the enclosure? It's possible the female was already gravid, laid her clutch, bred with the male, then laid another. I've seen 3 eggs in a clutch but that's rare are 4 is nigh unheard of. It does take a long time for them to hatch, 90 days minimum, so it'll be a while. Just keep them in the right temps and humidity and they should hatch if they're fertile.

 

[Dog Shrink]

I was going to add more to it but the edit button wasn't working and I didn't want to double post, plus I knew Ted was on and he'd prob. give you the details you were looking for (like he did. Ya never disappoint Ted ) Good luck, you'll have to let us know if they hatch for ya.

 

[Eniala]

The 2 geckos have been together for a long time and we've only had them about a month or two. you make a good point. It is a hollow cave that they are in and we honestly dont handle the geckos that often, we kind of clean around them so I suppose two could have been hidden in there without us knowing for quite some time and its only since she laid the other two that we could see them. Since it seems their gestation period is roughly 4-8 weeks then we must just not have seen them. Thanks for allt he info. Hoefull we'll be seeing some babies in the future.

 

[sfreptiles]

I hope they hatch ok!