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  1. #8
    rhac wrangler mlededee's Avatar
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    Re: Cutting Eggs Like BPs.

    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.
    - Emily


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    RhacHead (10-02-2009)

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