Reptile & Amphibian Forums

well my first egg i ever had from my leos was doing great up to about 2 days ago when i noticed it was sweating and today i get home from work and it was all sunken in. so i called a few people and they all said to look for movement in the egg when candeling and to look to see if their were any veins. so it was not moveing anymore(it was a few days ago), their were no more veins so i decided to cut it and the baby was fully formed and had absorbed most of the yolk but it was not moving. so i was wondering what would cause full term death in geckos. the temps varied slightly in the last few days and went from 81 and it went up to 84 today but 81 was the average since they were laid. please help advice needed i still have more eggs in the incubator that have about a month left to hatch. i dont want to repeat this dissapointment
adam
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hybrid breeders association
0.0.17 baby corns
16 corn eggs-due aug 5th
5 leo eggs-due aug 1st
0.1. normal corn het hypo,anery
1.0. snow corn het hypo,anery,amel
1.0. amel corn unknown hets(4ft 8inch long)
1.0 sinacorn
1.1 kenyan sand boas
0.1 mbk
0.1 albino nelsons
0.2 normal leo geckos
1.0 blizzard leo gecko
0.0.1 3 lined mud turtle

You said that the eggs were sweating so that would lead me to think that maybe your medium was to moist. Does condensation collect like water drops on your container? There should only be very fine mist like drops that collect on the top of the container.

In Leos I have better luck with a very dry perlite medium. It is easy to save collapsed eggs, but once they sweat they are almost always lost.

One more piece of advise that some might not agree with. Don't ever cut open a Leo egg. I have done it about a dozen times and only one baby ever made it. Now I never do, and almost all that I would have cut open before, have hatched fine. Some have hatched out as much as 3 days after their clutchmate.

Good luck with the others, if you keep trying you'll be up to your ears in hungry little mouths in no time.

only the one was sweating and it was the same medium for the entire 2 months and this was the first time i seen that one sweat. i do know what could of happened.
adam
-----
hybrid breeders association
0.0.17 baby corns
16 corn eggs-due aug 5th
5 leo eggs-due aug 1st
0.1. normal corn het hypo,anery
1.0. snow corn het hypo,anery,amel
1.0. amel corn unknown hets(4ft 8inch long)
1.0 sinacorn
1.1 kenyan sand boas
0.1 mbk
0.1 albino nelsons
0.2 normal leo geckos
1.0 blizzard leo gecko
0.0.1 3 lined mud turtle

As hatching time gets closer eggs are more sensitive to moisture. Basicly too much water enters the egg and the Leo drowns before it is able to hatch. Or it could be due to high osmotic pressure that interferes with the hatchlings ability to hatch successfully.

Really it could be a lot of things, so I guess you'll never know for sure. It could have even just been a weak baby, and nothing could have saved it.

I will say though that I had a lot of trouble my first year I breed Leos, I only had about a 25% hatch success. I had a lot of experience with colubrid eggs, but obviously they were more tolerant of my errors than leos were. I have since dried up my mix and switched from vermiculite to perlite and all my eggs have done way better. This year I only breed 4 Leos, and so far all of my eggs have hatched with no problems.