Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is it normal for the female tail to be kind of skinny after laying a clutch? I checked her last night and became worried then I found eggs in the sand tonight. This is her second clutch of the year with the first being about 2 months ago...I did not find them in time plus she layed them on top of where the heat pad happened to be and they dried out sadly. The eggs from this clutch are beautiful, and the weird thing is I think she why the first clutch didn't make it so this time she put enough sand into their water to make it just moist enough and layed the eggs there and lightly covered them with sand. Btw this will be my first ever try at raising Leo babies, any advice for a newbie?

Thanks
Brian

It's normal for the females to loose a noticeable amount of weight. But they usually will start eating aggressively & bulk back-up.
What I see that's abnormal is the length of time between the two clutches. Usually there's only a two to three week time span between them. From your post it sounds like you don't have a nest box in with her. If she does't have a comfotable place to lay her eggs, she could be holding on to them & then there's a risk of egg impaction. What I would use is any old of plastic container about 4" to 6" tall, with a hole cut on top big enough for her to crawl in & out of. Then you will want to fill it to about 1" from the top with an egg laying medium. What I like to use is the brown sphagnum/peat moss, you want the medium to be damp not soaked. If it's to wet, the eggs will soak up to much water & go bad.

Hope this helps you out.

Thanks for the help, I'll put that together today after work. Oh btw is it safe to incubate at 79-80 degrees? I read your % of females goes up the closer to 79 you incubate them.

the closer to 89**
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1.1 Western Painted Turtle (Mougly, Scooter)
1.1 Albino Leopard Gecko (Daphne, Guy)
1.0 High Yellow Leopard Gecko (Sunshine)
1.1 HTCT Leopard Gecko (Rocket, Dot)
0.1 SHTCT Leopard Gecko (Tequila)

You can, the incubation time will be longer. For years I've incubated at 87F, That got me roughly a 50/50 split. This year I dropped it to 85F hopeing to get a 75/25 female/male ratio. All my hatchlings are unsexable at the moment, so I don't have the results yet.
Some of my other breeder friend who use sex temp methods incubate as high as 82F for females & say it's pretty reliable. I think it would be about a 90/10 split