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I'm having so much trouble with my crested eggs. Last year (my first breeding season) only two of 10 eggs hatched successfully. They all molded over just as they were getting ready to hatch. When opened, I always found perfectly formed little dead babies. I changed my substrate, adding perilite (I can't find vermiculite in the area) to reduce the humidity to prevent molding. I thought that would work, as my most recent and last clutch didn't mold, and a couple of days ago one baby started breaking through. After twenty four hours, the slit hadn't gotten bigger and there was no signs of movement. I enlarged the slit, but I think the little guy was already dead. (My previous post is a picture of that). Today, when I checked in, he was already rotting. Now the second egg has tiny bumps all over it, which appeared in the last couple of days. Should I cut the shell? Could the bumps be attempts to cut throught? HELP ME!?

Mom has been feeding on CGD regularily, with crickets every other week or so. I've always been supplmenting her calcium with Bone-Aid liquid calcium.

Below are pictures of the dead baby, as well as pictures of one of the two hatchlings that survived from last year.

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1.1 Ghost corns, 1.1 Butter het. stripe corns, 0.1 normal corn
1.1 Tremper Albino Leopard Geckos
1.0 Super dalmation crested, 1.1 Pinstripe crested, 2.1.1 Misc crested
1.0 Ghost Bull, 0.1 Snow bull

oh my goodness i am so sorry!!! that really really sucks!! i dont normally post in here and i am not very good with cresteds my self and have never hatched any but my guess is that, its better too soon then too late i suppose. if you do help it out be for its time just make sure it is in a very clean sterile(paper toewls) small dark environment. must be very hummid or moist also. and the right temp for cresteds. who knows it may even still have its unbilical cord or whatever so thats why i say small dark quiet moist hummid place if you get any out. that is if you cut them out early.
people would probably say your crazy but if you have or know, i say just do it. your trying to help and there is nothing wrong with that. it is very strange however that that little one died. out of the few(10 or so) leopard gecko clutches that i have had they always hatched within 24hours of each other so i wouldnt wait too much longer. let us know what happened.

Ok ,Now if I seem cold or harsh I apoligize in advance . However I think I can help you work this out in time to increase your hatch rate this year .

I have been breeding 3 years and my hatch rate is slightly over 90% .

1) Your feeding mom crested gecko diet supplimented with dusted crickets. excellent exactly the right thing to do.

2) I prefer vermiculite , but if you cant find it and you added perlite I assume you are using dirt of some kind ? Dump the dirt , and use the perlite. Lots of breeders incubate with perlite. That will cut down on the mold spores .

3) Third moisture should be just enough that if you squeeze the incubation material HARD between youfingers you can get a drop out.I suspect your material is way too wet. I have found its easier to be too wet than too dry.

4) Crested geckos have been hatching entirely on their own for thousands (millions?) of years. Their eggs do not need to be handled , candled , weighed , slit, rolled, taken for walks or talked too.
Placng the egg back differently once it begins to form is belived by many experts to risk drowning the gecko .I do not know if this is true but am not willing to risk finding out .Handling also exposes the eggs to spores that it otherwise wouldnt be subjected to.
when adding water do not pour it directly on a egg this too can cause problems.

5) The fact your gecko's are so close to being formed probally is a clue to whats going wrong .

6) I personally do not slit eggs to help the little one inside .Some cresteds hatch as early as 55 days others can take as long as 120 days many factors play a role in this .temp being a major one, age of the mother another one. So its impossible to know when they are trully ready to hatch . The one time I slit a egg.. the lizard turned out to be deformed and It was a misrable sad creature I tried to nurse along and it ended up dying slowly instead of in the egg.

7) Final thought -if last year was your first year breeding was it also your geckos first year? First year breeders eggs and hatch rates are always lower than older geckos .Also along the same train of thought are your females at least 35 g?

Hope this helps.

www.slizards.com

Just to explain, I only enhlarged the slit because it had been 24 hours and the hatchling had't gotten through on its own and there was no movemet. I do not handle the eggs after initially moving them from the tank. I agree with you that they do it better themselves.

I purchased the parents during the summer of 05' as proven breeders. I can't know for sure, but I had a great working relationship from the breeder I bought them from. The female hovers around 37 grams.

Last year, when I had all the moldings, I was using coconut fiber; this year I used a layer of coconut fiber with the eggs sitting in a layer of perilite on top of the coconut fiber. I did this because I could't find any information on perilite as a hatch substrate, so I left in some coconut fiber for humidity. I'll dump the perilite for the next clutch. Do you know what weight ratio would correspond with that amount of liquid? (Just to maintain humidity throughout the incubation)

This season I always switched from room temp hatching to using a incubator to keep the temperature stable as well.
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1.1 Ghost corns, 1.1 Butter het. stripe corns, 0.1 normal corn
1.1 Tremper Albino Leopard Geckos
1.0 Super dalmation crested, 1.1 Pinstripe crested, 2.1.1 Misc crested
1.0 Ghost Bull, 0.1 Snow bull

No ,keep the perlite ,dump the fiber .

There are weight to water ratios - but kept in a deli dish ive found the water evaporates out of the very few air holes at such a slow rate that ive never bothered.So Ild be talking about things I dont do or really know.

Moist not wet is my mantra .I use a hoverbater myself although many breeders do not,I like the consistant temp myself .I like around 78 degrees .

IM betting if you cut your water back to moist (squueze between your thumb and pointer finger test you'll find your eggs hatch just fine.

you mix the perlite exactly like you would vermiculite. Don't use the coconut fiber as this can kill the eggs. In fact I am surprised your eggs weren't killed 36 hours after they were put into the coconut fiber (the Rhac book indicates this stuff is bad for incubating in, but I have heard some breeders have no problems with it so not sure what to go by).

Mix one part water to two parts incubation medium (in your case, perlite) by WEIGHT. Thus, if you are using 100 of perlite (don't forget to zero out the weight of the container you are putting the perlite into first...otherwise, this will throw off the amount of water to put in). Add water (I find misting the perlite (I use vermiculte actually but since you indicated you can't find it in your area, this will work on perlite as well) till you have a total weight of 150g in my example, showing. Mix by hand to distribute the water through all the perlite between sprays being careful not to knock out medium out of the deli dish helps too.

I only put in one or two small holes into the lid of deli dish, or none at all, depending on the relative humidity of the environment the eggs will be in. If very dry, no holes, if humid, one or two. I just open up the container once a week to provide air circulation.

It is also a good ideal to mark the top of the egg when you take it out of the egg laying bin (making sure you do not rotate it at all as doing this can drown the baby, if the egg has been sitting still for more than 24 hours). Most water based markers are fine, or even permanent markers. You don't have to make a big mark, just one you can see easily and know will be the top (even marking the egg with a code so you know which female/pair it belonged too works as well as jsut a little dash or spot).

Thus, should you accidently drop the deli dish (or the cat knocks it over etc.) you can put the eggs back right side up. Hatchlings can also upset eggs in the incubator too, if not discovered right away. I lost a few eggs because of this....a pair of eggs hatched much earlier than I expected and they were running around the deli dish for a couple of nights, knocking all the other eggs over. Most hatched, but one or two didn't...they may not have hatched anyway but you never know).
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PHLdyPayne

Thanks for the help, especially the water to substrate ratio.

I do mark eggs before incubation already, and generally then leave them alone, so that hasn't really been a problem for me.

I should have a new clutch any day, probably the last this season, and I'll try your suggestions. Hopefully I'll have more luck.

Thanks!
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1.1 Ghost corns, 1.1 Butter het. stripe corns, 0.1 normal corn
1.1 Tremper Albino Leopard Geckos
1.0 Super dalmation crested, 1.1 Pinstripe crested, 2.1.1 Misc crested
1.0 Ghost Bull, 0.1 Snow bull

Why not use hatchrite? It might save you some head-aches, as it come premoisturized.

http://www.pangeareptile.com/products.htm#hatchrite
Link

I only use perilite and have nearly 100% hatch rates. I just get a storage container (like those zip-lock ones) and fill with perilite that has been rinsed (to remove the small chunks). The perilite is about 2.5-3 inches deep. Then I pour in water so it fills the bottom 1/2 inch. Make small dents that allow the eggs to sit 1/2 down in the perilite. Then I put the lid on. I incubate at room temp (around 75-79 degrees depending on the time of year) with the container just in the same room as the adults. Open the lid about 3 times a week to refresh the air inside. Then about 60 days later I get two happy babies.

My females eat CGD and crickets now and then, plus baby orange head and orange spotted roaches that I breed myself. Calcium dust the bugs. I have a small colony but not had any trouble yet. I pretty much just incubated them as I did for bearded dragon eggs, minus the hovabator. I don't use vermiculite as it bothers my skin.

I've only had one baby die ever and he hatched fine. He actually died because I was out of town and my reptile sitter was less than adequate (won't use him again).

I use pure perlite and can't really remember the last time I had a fertile egg fail to hatch. I don't hatch huge numbers each year, but have had excellent results. You can't really pinch or squeeze the perlite to check moisture like you can with vermiculite, so pay attention to your weight ratios. Truthfully, I don't stress too much over the moisture anymore. If I see some little condensation droplets along the side of my container, I know it's fine. If I don't, I add a little water, avoiding getting any directly on the eggs.

One thing that no one else has seemed to pick up on... since it appears that these eggs are making it to (or at least nearly to) full term, then I suspect moisture levels may not be the main culprit that others are making it out to be. You mention that you feed CGD and occasional dusted crickets (good choices), but that you also supplement with a liquid calcium supplement. I wonder whether you might be over supplementing the calcium with the liquid supplement. If the eggs are overcalcified, it can make it more difficult for the hatchlings to emerge. Since they seem to be developing normally, but failing to emerge, this may be your problem. The CGD has a properly balanced amount of calcium including the Vitamin D3, so I would trust the formulation and stop giving the extra calcium. Sometimes too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Good luck.

Gary

Good point on the calcium .While I can not claim personal knowledge or experence with excessive calcium.I can see where that is a possibilty.

I do know that feeding with crested gecko diet alone ,I have not had a single animal including first year breeders suffer a calcium crash . And can vouch that the additional calc isnt needed.

Slizards.com

You know, after what happened last time I was thinking that. I'm going to stop supplementing and keep on eye on her. Thanks.
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1.1 Ghost corns, 1.1 Butter het. stripe corns, 0.1 normal corn
1.1 Tremper Albino Leopard Geckos
1.0 Super dalmation crested, 1.1 Pinstripe crested, 2.1.1 Misc crested
1.0 Ghost Bull, 0.1 Snow bull

1. I would stop using the bone-aid. As mentioned by someone else, this could be causing the egg shells to become too thick for the hatchlings to break through.

2. Try increasing the moisture levels. Whenever I have hatchlings fail to make it out of the egg, it's usually due to inadequate moisture. I try to mix the perlite and water at about a 1:1 ratio by weight.
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Anthony Caponetto
www.ACreptiles.com