Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have several gravid females and was expecting eggs any time. Unfortunately I had to go out of town a few days for work. When I got back, one of these females had shoveled sand all into her nest box and had clearly layed a clutch. She had lost some weight.

I searched in the box and there were two eggs buried in the sand. The substrate beneath the sand was moist but the sand was pretty dry. I'm not sure how long the eggs were in this condition but it's possible it could have been a couple of days. I took the eggs and put them on moist substrate in the incubator. One of them seemed to plump up a little and still looks nice and white and normal size. The other looks a little sunken in.

Has anyone had this experience before. Can I expect that at least the one egg may survive? Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Leo eggs are pretty hardy! All you can do is wait and see, you will know relatively soon if the eggs are viable or not.

Good luck!
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1.1 Bearded Dragons
2.2 Leopard Geckos
1.0 Uromastyx (Mali)
1.1 Corn snakes
0.1 Mexican Black Kingsnake
1.0 Bairds Ratsnake
1.0 Rosy Boa
1.1 Green Anoles
1.1 House Geckos
0.0.2 Flying Geckos
0.0.1 Red Eye Tree Frog

Your doing exactly what I would do. There's been several times when I've gone days (even up to a week) not looking for eggs do to not being able to get to it for several reasons. The odds of eggs collected later hatching is less then fresh collected eggs, but it doesn't hurt to give them a chance. You can try keeping the sunken egg a little more humid then the other & see if it recoups. It will happen within a day or two. Another thing I do is bury the sunken egg for a couple days & see if that helps it rebound. As soon as you see that the egg has come back to life, return it back to normal incubateing conditions because you can loose eggs from over compensateing with the humidity for to long of time. Do keep in mind, if you see mold on the egg in about a week, chances are the egg is most likely bad. Good luck.

Hey! Thanks for the responses. I did candle the eggs last night. The better one glows a nice rosy pink so I think it may be alright. The dud looks like a dud, glowing yellowish in the pen light. Guess I better throw that one out.

I'll candle the good one again in a week or so and hope for the best.

Thanks