well tonight was kind of a bummer--i lost a baby crested gecko. i know i should be counting myself lucky that this is my first loss when it comes to cresteds but somehow that's not a ton of consolation.

this was the second clutch from gidget and spice. one of the eggs went bad almost right away and this one was a bit late to hatch but nothing too abnormal. the baby managed to slit the egg open earlier tonight and i was all excited because i have never actually caught the first part of the hatching process--i always find them, head already out, resting to prepare to pull themselves the rest of the way out of the egg. i set up my camera and was all set to document the entire process, but then nothing happened. i sat glued to the egg for 2 hours but still nothing. generally it seems like babies will slit the egg and pop their heads right out--i'll check the incubator and see nothing at all and literally 30 seconds later there's a head! so anyhow i figured it was a watched egg never hatches type thing and went about dinner, feeding/cleaning cages and all that. still nothing.

finally about an hour ago i picked the egg up and gently lifted a piece of the slit eggshell with my fingernail to see if i could see anything. that pretty much proved that the baby was either very weak or already dead in the egg so i carefully cut the egg open enough that i could help the baby out. needless to say there was no life left in the little one, although visually there was nothing wrong with it that i could see. i know that some babies don't make it out for a reason, it's just tough not to know what that reason is when they look like a perfect, fully formed baby.

rip little one.