Am I doing anything wrong?

[jfreels]

So as you might have read in my other thread, Lily's first clutch was no good. They never really even resembled eggs and got pretty nasty after a week or so.

I changed the lay medium (from ecco-earth to cypress mulch) and the incubation medium (from vermiculite to SuperHatch).

The cypress mulch worked really well for the lay medium. Eggs looked great!



They looked even better in SuperHatch...(yeah, typical eggs, but the other ones were just mushy sacks)



I followed the directions on the SuperHatch for moisturizing the medium. My Reptibator was set to 83 F and always said 85% humidity.

I had the eggs in a ZipLock container with a very small pinhole. I did not rotate the eggs when I transferred them from the lay bin to the incubation tub.

This second set of eggs which was laid a week ago was VERY moldy when I checked on them this Saturday. I candled them and didn't even see a spec of red, just yellow.

Is it safe to say that these eggs are infertile or am I messing something up with this process?

Lily is due to lay again this Sunday, please advise. This has been very frustrating.

[geckobabies]

From my experience those eggs look infertile to me and is quite common in first year females laying their eggs. I would personally not use cypress mulch for egg laying material. I use sphagnum moss for our geckos egg laying boxes and perilite for the incubation medium.

Hang in there. First year females can be frustrating at times. GL!

[jfreels]

Thank you for the reply! She laid four more clutches of 2 eggs and two clutches of single eggs. I incubated most of them and all developed very bad mold.

I tried sphagnum moss for a couple of the clutches but I found that it molded too, quite quickly.

Anyway, I'll try again next season. The breeding female did a good job and I think she likes being "normal" again lol. She seemed to lost her interest in hunting and it has since returned after she laid that last single egg a week or so ago.

[5GsReptiles]

Personally I would have stayed with vermiculite.... The incubation medium looks to moist also(could be the picture)
And yes I do agree they look infertile (slugs) Where they yelowish and rubbery?

-Jon

[geckobabies]

Thank you for the reply! She laid four more clutches of 2 eggs and two clutches of single eggs. I incubated most of them and all developed very bad mold.

I tried sphagnum moss for a couple of the clutches but I found that it molded too, quite quickly.

Anyway, I'll try again next season. The breeding female did a good job and I think she likes being "normal" again lol. She seemed to lost her interest in hunting and it has since returned after she laid that last single egg a week or so ago.

YW!

They are probably molding with the moss because they are bad eggs, but you are right if the moss is too wet and she lays them and they are not removed fairly quickly even good eggs go bad.. but it sounds like to me she was just a "bad" first year breeder. It happens often no matter what you do.

No matter what your substrate is if it's too wet they will mold. Using vermiculite is fine. Many people use that for both egg laying and moist hide. I personally prefer perilite for incubation and moss for laying/humidity box. It works very well for me and my setup.

Next year should def be better! Keep her calcium up and lots of proteins and vitamins and she should be good to go. The good news for you is she did lay a good amount of eggs, so once she get's it right you should have plenty of lil baby geckos running around (:

Photo of our old setup with egg laying box (not an actual female but our egg laying boxes were identical last year - this is just a humid hide with the top off) We have upgraded to larger setups for this year.

[jfreels]

Where they yelowish and rubbery?

Yes, they were. I had read online that you couldn't tell if they are fertile until after a couple weeks. I guess that website was wrong.

I didn't like the vermiculite because it would stick to the eggs and I could never get a good mark on them with a sharpie.

They are probably molding with the moss because they are bad eggs, but you are right if the moss is too wet and she lays them and they are not removed fairly quickly even good eggs go bad.. but it sounds like to me she was just a "bad" first year breeder. It happens often no matter what you do.

I would literally remove them an hour after she would lay them. The mold I am referring too is mold that occurs between egg laying. Do you have to replace the moss after eggs are layed?

Beautiful girl! Thanks guys for the info. Hopefully next year will work out better for us.

[geckobabies]

Thanks!

That's actually a photo of Snowdrift... he is a male Enigma Super Mack Snow Tremper Albino. I didn't have any good photos of a female in their nextbox.. so I used that photo which shows the exact setup we used last year for the females.

If the eggs are molding during incubation their are only two good reasons. They were infertile/weak or the moisture/humidity was too high. From everything you explained it sounds like to me she was just a bad first year breeder which is very common.

I would replace the moss after the end of the season. If you only have one gecko it's possible to rinse and wash the moss and use it several times before throwing it away. For us however, since we have so many geckos, 3 to 4 times a year we simply discard the moss and replace with fresh moss, because I don't want to cross contaminate any one geckos moss with anothers just in case there is ever a problem. With a small collection you could just rinse and reuse a few times.

We actually just setup 62 humidity/egg boxes this weekend. We filled a five gallon bucket with water and 4 packages of Exo Terra Double Brick Moss.

Here's a photo of the start of the process. It got messy real quick!

[jfreels]

62, WOW

On a side note (I'm allowed to derail my own threads, right?) my wife "rescued" a male leo yesterday at her work. The previous owners said that they had a new animal now and they didn't feel like feeding it anymore. They said it has been two weeks since it last ate.

Anyway, what's the smallest tub you'd recommend for a leo? I'm looking just to get him healthy again and then rehome him. Currently he's in a shoebox sized tub which seems to be working out. He ate 2 roaches last night, pooped and ate 4 more roaches this morning. He's 44g and looked very dehydrated (skin kind of wrinkly). He has all his toes and is alert and hunts very well.

Here's a pic. He looks fine, but he's the same length as my male breeder but weighs 21 grams less.

[geckobabies]

Hi!

Sorry for the delay, I am out of town for the holidays and have not been keeping up with posts...

Congrats on the rescue! He's a cutie! A shoebox sized tote is just fine for an adult leopard gecko that's being healed and recovering from trama.. it's better to go small then large in that case. The only thing to make sure of in that sized container is for him to get warm enough and then be able to get a cool zone. As long as you have that, he'll be just fine until you find him another home. If you decide to keep him I would keep him in a minimum of a 10g aquarium. I know some breeders use a 15qt Sterilite for adults.. but I prefer a larger long term setup.

Quick photo of my adult setup:


I would def make sure to add a humidity box to help with the shed and hydration. You can also soak him in about 1/4" of luke warm or room temp water for about 20 minutes or so a couple of times a week. That will help him hydrate quickly since they are not a tropical lizard.

Sorry again for not responding sooner! I hope he's doing okay!

Happy Thanksgiving!

[jjmitchell]

you guys are making me feel lazy.... I keep everything in colonies, 1male with 2-3 females.... 1 egglaying box and just really watch females, you will know which one just laid... Ne who, I use vermiculite in the lay box, and in the "incubator" my hight tec gecko incubator is a steralite tub filled with moist vermiculite setting on a uth with a dimmer switch to control heat(i know some of you are gonna bash me for method... but it hatched 100% last year) Ne way UI have had a few females that just never laid good eggs.... dont sweat it it happens.... I keep a penlight like the cheapones dr.'s carry to candle eggs.... It they dont look good, give em a few days and put the flashlight right up to them and with the light youshould be able to see veins..... hope this helps you know they say a watched pot never boils, I kinda think the same is with leopards,if you try to hard it seems much moredifficult than it is....