# Lizards > Rhacodactylus Geckos >  Cutting Eggs Like BPs.

## MKHerps

Anyone ever cut eggs to allow babies to emerge. I would not suggest this to anyone. This was my wifes first year to breed Cresties. Out of thirty eggs over the season we had successfully hatched two. These eggs that had gone bad all went full term. Around 60 days the eggs would begin to look bad, and upon cutting them open I would find fully developed geckos. So we were down to the last 10 eggs of the season. One hatched on its own, the last to be laid. We began to worry the others were not going to hatch after a week went by. I breed bps and cutting eggs is not as big of a deal, but with geckos there is no room in the egg for mistake. So last night after contimplating on cutting or waiting we convinced ourself to cut. I have a baby rock rattlesnake that is eating lizards so if the eggs had gone bad I could use them.  So I cut and out came a very healthy baby. So I cut three more and all had very healthy babies come out.  24 hours later and all babies are still doing well. I will not pursue this as a common practice, I would rather them hatch on their own..  But we had better success cutting the eggs then we had allowing them to hatch on their own. One of the babies I cut the egg on is the biggest baby I hatched all season.. I have had babies cut the egg with their egg tooth, and die trying to get out.  Anyone have any thoughts on this practice.

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## bad-one

That is very interesting, I've never heard of cutting gecko eggs. Glad your babies turned out fine  :Good Job:

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## nixer

pretty much no matter what egg laying animal when you cut eggs it takes a step out that mother nature created to help ensure that only the stronest survive.  there is lots of things that could cause babies to not pip...
did you happen to look and see if the ones you cut had an egg tooth?

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## Envied Reptiles

Glad to hear all the cut eggs did well. However, if only 2 of 60 hatched on there own you are doing something wrong. I would check you incubation methods with others who do so successfully.

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## Hulihzack

I cut a few leopards that didn't hatch on time this year, most were fully developed stillborns, but one was just not even close... I can see it being helpful as long as you know when to cut.  Envied probably has a point though

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## MKHerps

I have written many post on my eggs not hatching. I have been told that only strong babies will hatch. At first I was feeding my adults baby food and crickets, so I got the food changed to Rapashy. I also believe the eggs were getting a little to warm at first (temps around 76-82). I believe the above 80 degree temps were killing the babies. So i fixed that problem, and eggs still would go bad. These eggs may of hatched but I was tired of lossing fully developed babies. All of the ones I cut are feeding already and doing well. I do not think I will do this every time, but if I get concerned about the egg after 60 days I might cut. I was expecting to find dead babies, which I would use to feed neonate rock rattlesnakes, but out came healthy babies.   



Like I said in the begining, I do not recommend this. Geckos  take up the whole egg and there is a high chance of cutting the baby if not very carefull. I will not do this on a regular basis.   I was just shocked to actually cut an egg and find a healty baby.  At least now they have a chance to grow up and may be very healty as adults.

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## Envied Reptiles

MK,
As a general rule lower temps are better. Ideally you want to be in the 65 F range, 80+F is not good. If they do hatch on their own it will cause them to develop to fast and they wont be nearly as robust and large as they would at lower/longer incubation temps and times. 

Glad to hear you gave up the babyfood, and are using c.g.d. I would watch calcium levels/signs of mbd in your breeder females still though, especially if they were breeding before and during the switch. In all honesty I would separate the adults for at least six months before I tried breeding again. 

Another problem I personally struggled with when starting out was over watering/ allowing to much water/moisture to come in contact with the eggs. This will cause them to die as well. 

I still would post more details about your care/husbandry and let others critique them in an effort to understand your shortcomings and avoid being in this situation time and again. But, thats just me.

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## mlededee

Two out of thirty eggs hatching on their own is extreme. Cresteds are among the most hardy geckos and if the proper incubation conditions are met and the parents were healthy you should never have this problem. You first need to figure out what you are doing wrong before trying to breed again because there is no way you should be losing that many babies.

I would NOT recommend cutting gecko eggs except in the most extreme and educated of circumstances. Geckos are not like ball pythons in that they cannot survive inside the egg once it has been cut for more than a few minutes time. The embryo and other fluids in a gecko egg start to dry up as soon as any sort of breech in the egg is made. Once it starts to dry up it hardens and the baby cannot breathe in it, causing it to suffocate and die. This happens very quickly which is why you may find an egg with slits in it but a fully formed baby inside that did not make it out. The other risk is the development of the baby inside the egg. If the baby is not fully developed it will die if you cut the egg too early forcing it to hatch. You need to have a very firm grasp on the exact temperatures your eggs were incubated at and the normal hatching time frames associated with those temps in order to make any sort of decision about cutting (and even then I would not recommend it). If your temps varied at all, then you really can't even guess because one week at a few degrees less may put the hatching time back by a week or more. It is a delicate balance, and one best left to nature alone. 

All of that said, the only reason I would ever recommend cutting an egg is if the baby inside has already slit the egg but has not emerged. In this case, the baby has to come out regardless, or it will suffocate.

You are very lucky that the babies you cut are doing so well. You have to realize, that even though you switched foods, the results of that would not be immediate on the babies (if at all this season). It could take several months or more of being on the Repashy diet for your females to maintain proper calcium and other nutritional levels (and doing so while laying eggs could be difficult), so any eggs they laid during that time might still not contain strong and healthy babies. Your adults really need to be on the Repashy diet and have a good long rest with no breeding or egg laying (6-9 months minumum) before you try to breed them again. You should then check the calcium levels of all of your females before breeding them and then continue to check them monthly while they are breeding and laying to make sure they are maintaining proper levels. With healthy adults and proper incubation conditions (humidity and temps) you should have no problems hatching healthy baby cresteds.

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_RhacHead_ (10-02-2009)

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## MKHerps

Well at first we had read that the eggs hatch at 76-80 degrees and a 60-80 day incubation time. So I use a frige/freezer as an incubator for bps. The temps in the freezer above my fridge stayed around 80 degrees. There was no heat in the freezer section, but the heat rising for the fridge were getting to hot i found them at 82 on some days. Deciding this was the cause of the eggs not hatching we moved the eggs to a shelf in the room. Still was having problems with the eggs not hatching. After talking to others on this forum we decided the food was the cause of the geckos not hatching. The females may not have been healthy enough. I also seperated my males from the females at this time. This was our females first year breeding could it be due to that?   But yes we had three females breeding, got the first five eggs I think in April. They have laid eggs every month since then and to date I have had 

4 geckos hatch on their own (1 died the following day)
3 geckos cut from eggs on day 65
1 gecko pip but died in egg
15 eggs went bad during incubation
8 eggs still in incubation
6 babies alive today out of 31 eggs
All of the geckos that have hatched hatched right at 60 days or a few days before. Earliest to hach was 55 days.  So when the three eggs that I cut had not hatched ot 65 days it was starting to worry us. I made a slit in the nipple of the egg and slowly ripped and out came alive geckos.  Like I have said in the op I will not pursue this practice, I would like the geckos to hach on their own. But they dont they usually go bad.

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## Darkice

I dont know about cresteds but my Leachies incubated at 74degrees and they always hatched. All my hatchlings were females. I didn't want to make it warmer because the eggs are sensitive and will die very easy from warmer temps. Some people Oversoak the eggs. What i did was use a Large tub even for a few eggs. The hatching medium i used was called Calcined clay. Its a soil additive for bonzai trees. (Allan Repashy told me about it). Best stuff i ever used. Never spray the eggs directly or they will mold up. 
Diet is probobly the most important thing for the females to have healthy eggs. Dont everbreed them. Give them at least 2 months off after breeding. 
I had Leachie eggs go 120 days before hatching. I never even though about cutting them open. 
I read somewhere that just a few degrees above room temp is all that is needed for Rhac eggs to incubate. Warmer temps will make them hatch faster but you hatch rate will drop dramaticly.

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## mlededee

> Well at first we had read that the eggs hatch at 76-80 degrees and a 60-80 day incubation time. So I use a frige/freezer as an incubator for bps. The temps in the freezer above my fridge stayed around 80 degrees. There was no heat in the freezer section, but the heat rising for the fridge were getting to hot i found them at 82 on some days. Deciding this was the cause of the eggs not hatching we moved the eggs to a shelf in the room. Still was having problems with the eggs not hatching.


Any eggs that were in the incubator with high temps would have been affected by the heat they received. A few hours of excess heat can be enough to kill a baby in the egg, cause deformities or other problems. Moving those eggs to cooler temperatures might not have any affect on those eggs, only those that were laid and placed into the cooler temps from the start would totally benefit from those proper temps.




> After talking to others on this forum we decided the food was the cause of the geckos not hatching. The females may not have been healthy enough. I also seperated my males from the females at this time. This was our females first year breeding could it be due to that?


A healthy first year breeder female should lay healthy eggs with babies that have no problems hatching. She may lay one or two infertile clutches before she starts laying fertile ones, but beyond that all of the clutches should be good. If you have a female that has been laying for a long time with no break and is getting depleted, her last few clutches may go bad due to the fact that she was not healthy enough when the eggs were developing and being laid.

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## AnthonyCaponetto

1. Never cut the egg early. Unlike a python egg, most gecko eggs are "pressurized", for lack of a better term...meaning when you cut the egg, the gecko is coming out immediately...not later today, but right now. That's a bad thing if the gecko isn't at full term.  Also unlike python eggs, crested gecko eggs can vary tremendously in how long they take to hatch.  I've seen everything from 45 to 120 days.  Eggs from the same clutch can even hatch a week or so apart.

2. We had lots of trouble with eggs going full term and then babies not making it out.  In my situation, switching the parents from baby food and crickets to crested gecko diet and crickets seemed to help.  Many of these geckos were first year breeders, and that almost certainly played a role...which brings me to number 3.

3. Eggs from first year breeders do seem to have a lower hatch rate.  This isn't always the case with every female, but our numbers (out of 100-200+ first year females each season) indicate a substantial improvement in hatch rate and a noticeable increase in production in their 2nd and 3rd years.

4. My best advice is to not give up.  Crested geckos are VERY prolific breeders and are very (VERY) easy to breed and hatch.  

5. You may want to try adding more water to your incubation container.  We use perlite about 3" deep and put about twice as much water (by weight).  Most people incubate with a 2:1 or 1:1 perlite to water ratio...we incubate at a 1:2 to 1:2.5 perlite/water ratio...but we use a deep container to make sure water pools at the bottom. 

Just FYI, we use a 6.75" container (either 3" or 3.5" tall) with about 80 grams perlite and 160-200 grams water.  We find this to be a safe a range that allows us to wait 2-3 months before adding water.

Almost forgot...every 2-3 months we just weigh each container and then add enough water to get it back up to the correct weight.  You also have remember that each egg in the container will add about 2 grams when you're doing the math.

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## RhacHead

For anyone looking to breed Ciliatus this is sound advice Anthony knows his stuff. Good to see you over here.I knew you were into Morelia but didnt realize you did BP's.

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## AnthonyCaponetto

> Good to see you over here.I knew you were into Morelia but didnt realize you did BP's.


Haha...oh yeah. They're actually the first reptile species I ever bred.  Got my first in 1991, but now I've been keeping them constantly since 2001.  Huge huge fan of the morphs...just opted to stay on the sidelines while the ridiculous prices worked themselves out.  I bought a bunch of cool CH females in 2005 and just started feeding them, waiting for exactly that to happen. :-) 

Had I been able to afford some morphs earlier in the decade, when clowns were $10K, pastels $2K, and butters $35,000 (lol), ball pythons would probably be a big part of our business now.  Now that the prices aren't so stupid, I'm really getting back into the morphs.

The funny thing is...when I got into crested geckos, all my ball python buddies told me to quit wasting my time.  Now we all get a chuckle out of it because some of my top notch crested geckos sell for more than some of the morphs they were paying $10,000+ for (mojaves, spiders, etc.). lol

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## singingtothewheat

You know.  I think you made the right decision.  Being a nurse for 21 years and doing my research well, I have learned to pop, probe, tube feed ect.  Now I certainly would not say this is for everyone but I have 11 snakes.  I can't run one to the vet in Colorado springs for every little thing.  If the animal is truly ill and it looks like an R.I. or scale rot, or if my gut just told me something just ain't right at all,  I'd go to the vet in a minute.   I got a pastel earlier this year and when he didn't eat for awhile I thought it was just stress and then it started to be the time of year when they would normally go into brumation.  I finally started giving him pedialyte via tube and soaking him in warm pedialyte.  I treated him for worms.  I also supplemented is diet with baby food chicken.  When we did that for two months and my attempts to persuade him to eat still were not working we went to the vet.  The vet said he really looked very good, maybe a little thin but not worrisome thin.  She gave him a broad spectrum antibiotic and flagyl and two weeks later he was pounding mice like no bodies business.  Should I have gone to the Vet first.  I'm not sure.   Will I do it differently in the future, perhaps.  

You've cut eggs before, you know how it works and just how delicate you have to be.  Those guys with the razor blades scare the ____ out of me when I watch a vid of cutting and I'd probably go for little suture scissors personally.   I think you were very prudent and thoughtful in your decision and you weighed the facts.  GREAT JOB!

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## MKHerps

I had very good success with cutting the eggs.  I have cut many ball python eggs and thought I would give it a shot.  Toward the end of the season when temps outside here in Texas got cooler we had a 100% hatch rate.  The first three or four months even at room temp in our house I think the eggs were getting to hot.  My house can reach low 80's on a 100+ degree day in the summer.  I only cut 8 eggs out of 20.  Those eight eggs all survived and started eating quickly. I cut right on 60 days when the temps were on the higher end.  I waited 75 days when the temps started getting cooler.  Those eggs probably would of hached on there own if I would of waited.  I still have one clutch of eggs to hatch.   My males and females have been seperated for months now and no females have laid eggs for two months.  I will not start breeding again till late Feb. or Mar.    So we ended up with 28 babies aout of  58 eggs.  

Does anyone know of an incubatror that can heat and cool to maintain a temp?  My problem here in Texas is keeping the eggs cooled and out oh the 80 degree range.

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