If you extracted the egg within 24 hrs of laying and you laid it flat in the perlite, it should be fine. I “thought” that the time allotted was within 36 hrs. Obviously the sooner the better. I always mark my eggs on their tops with a small dot from a sharpie even before taking them out from where they are laid noting their orientation. The ink is non-toxic and I have never heard of any embryos born with a black eye or caused dalmatian spots due to the ink.



If gecko eggs are anything like snake eggs, once they have been laid and are exposed to air, the embryo is triggered to attach itself to the inner wall of the egg. Blood veins then spread out from the attached embryo and they crawl along side of the inner wall of the egg. The veins are pulling air in through the walls of the egg and taking it to the embryo. If the egg is turned after it is attached and the veins are established, it can drown. How? I do not know. Maybe it constricts the blood or maybe it can’t pull enough air from the wall if that wall is not exposed to open air anymore but rather under the substrate.



I tried to candle my gecko eggs last year with little success. For one, I don’t like messing around with the orientation of the egg in order to put it up to a candle. Another thing is people like me shouldn’t play with matches. I use a mag light on my python eggs. It is as simple as doing an ultra sound on a belly. I just glide the small mag light over the surface of the egg and marvel at the veins and eventually the movement of the embryo inside. But, unfortunately ciliatus eggs are small and a mag light beam seems to not penetrate it where I want to.



There is a flashlight attachment called a “bore sight” and it is a thick fiber optic/plastic tube. People use it to look down gun barrels when cleaning their guns. It concentrates the light into a beam. I have been wondering if this would work better in candling smaller eggs. If I give it a shot, I will let you know how well it works.



So how do you know if your eggs are fertile? In my experience, eggs yellow if they aren’t fertile however Sleepygecko said that she had infertile eggs that did not yellow. One thing for sure is that if the embryo grows, so does the egg.

You can do a thread test on it. Take a 3 inch piece of string and measure the middle diameter of the egg. Mark the length on the string with a sharpie where the thread meets itself. Re-measure the eggs diameter in 2 weeks or so with the same thread and see if it has swelled any larger.



If the egg was bad, I would think that if it doesn’t sink in on itself it will eventually dry out in the center or if it was moist enough…..mold. I haven’t had a bad ciliatus egg yet so I don’t know what they do. I definitely wouldn’t think they would swell though. Whatever gasses from decomposing with in the egg are given off, should escape through the walls.



Just in front of the back leg joints towards the abdomen…that’s where I notice the difference in weight after they lay. It will be sunken in for a couple days. If they are hanging on the glass upside down/ head facing down, it is very noticeable.



I hope these are fertile for you! I am an addict when it comes to seeing someone experience something like this who are really passionate about the hobby! There is nothing quite like it!



Sorry the post was long but I hope this helps a bit.



Best of luck!!!!!!!



Severa

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