What causes "Small Eye Syndrome"?

[justin-branam]

I am wondering if the cause of this is known, or at least, any factors that could cause it. I am starting to think temp swings while incubating could be the root cause, but wanted to check with you all. I have hatched in total, 5 babies. 3 of them have had small eye . I hatched 3 last year in a makeshift styrafoam cooler incubator, so i dont expect it was the best thing, but i did get 2 healthy individuals from that. This year i bought a Hovobator, and have hatched 2 eggs so far, both having small eyes. i know for a fact that unfortunately, the temps in there have swung a massive 5 degrees (81-86), due to my proportional thermostat not coming in on time. anyways, i am going to build a better incubator from an old mini fridge, using heating cable and my new proportional thermostat to set the temps at 85.

Anyways, back to the main point, do we know what causes this? i searched around on google, but couldnt seem to find an answer. any help would be appretiated.


Also, do these hatchlings have a chance, or should i just go ahead and put them down?

EDIT: and now that im getting a good look at the pictures, are those the egg teeth in the front? if so, does this mean theyhave 2 rather than 1?

 

[acpart]

I don't know what, if anything in particular, causes the syndrome. It may even be that there are multiple causes with the same result. In my case I hatched one baby with small eyes/malformed eyelids out of 38. They were all incubated in the same incubator and the eggs that were in at the same time as the one that was deformed hatched out normal babies. As far as how viable they are, once I determined that this gecko could close its eyes and was feeding and growing I advertised it as an adoption. It was about 16 grams when I gave it away and doing fine. Are these babies all from one or both of the same parents?

Aliza

 

[Mel&Keith]

My personal opinion is that vitamin issues have more to do with eye deformities than temperature swings but that's just been our experience. Oh, and if they can shut their eyes they could possibly do fine but if not their eyes will dry out.

 

[justin-branam]

Are these babies all from one or both of the same parents?

Aliza

two seperate females. the one last year hatched on healthy and one with the eye deformity. this year it was a seperate set of parents.

My personal opinion is that vitamin issues have more to do with eye deformities than temperature swings but that's just been our experience.

I do add a little bit of vitamin to their food once a week. is there any other way to give them a little bit more? im just worried about overdosing on the vitamin i guess.

 

[nightseer00]

i have a little guy i adopted not too long ago who also has a small eye. He is blind in one eye as well... i was told he was born like this as a result of a power outage when he was incubating. he is so very sweet but is a little jumpy as he can only see out of half his small little eye. ill try to get some pics..

 

[Mel&Keith]

What brand of supplements are you using? I've heard a few breeders on here say that with certain supplements they noticed a higher rate of defects. (You'd have to do a search) The schedule we keep our breeding girls on is Rep-cal calcium with D3 and Herptivite once a week in the mealworm dish and plain calcuim in a dish all of the time. So far (*knocks on wood*) it's seemed to work really well for us. It could be a combination of supplementation and temperature spikes that are causing problems. Good luck with the future eggs!

 

[acpart]

I'm also using rep-cal and herptivite and have only had the one problem. It's difficult for me to monitor my supplementation because so many of my geckos are inconsistent eaters at this time of the year.

Aliza

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

Eye deformities are speculated to be caused by too much/not enough Vitamin A.