Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all ...

I want to give all the details so this post will be long, though I'll do my best to keep it short.

On May 1st my incubator's thermostat broke and when I came home from work the temp was 117 F (I have no idea how long they were like that for but must assume at least a few hours) ... I had 14 eggs in there ... they all looked terrible and smelled cooked. The really bad ones got tossed but I kept a few that looked like they could make it. Most of the keepers molded or just disintegrated shortly after, but ... (and I know its poor organisation on my part,) ... I kept a few of the eggs and added the new eggs that I got into the same incubator (with a new thermostat).

Of the 14 that got cooked, 4 of them were laid on April 3rd, and therefore would be at 8 weeks on June 3rd.

On May 7th, I had 4 more eggs laid ... these have been incubating and seemingly doing well.

All these eggs are albinos.

Yesterday, to my complete surprise, I opened up the incubator and found my first albino baby. I was thrilled, of course, and set him up in my baby rack system.

It didn't take too long to notice that something about the baby seems off. Now, let me make one thing VERY clear ... I'm a nervous person when it comes to my animals, and I could really just be being paranoid. I had 6 babies hatch last year, but I can't really remember how they looked/behaved as new borns. They were also normals, and the black pigment made it easier to examine the animals' features.

The little fella seems to be very scrawny, and his eyes are bright red and seem buldgy. I have heard that a fairly common birth defect is leos born without eyelids. This baby is so small, and, (I assumed because of the albinism) his skin is so pale ... it is truly difficult to see if he has fully formed eyelids. Or fully formed anything for that matter.

I waved my finger around less than an inch from his face and he did not react at all. He seemed totally blind. However, when I perfomed this same test on a bunch of my adults, they hardly reacted to my finger either ... so maybe that's no need for concern.

I should mention that he has been romping around his rubbermaid quite like a regular leo ... even a little climbing and he doesn't seem to be bumping into things. He ran into his hide ... right in the hole in the middle, without smacking into the sides. (This uplifts me and makes me think that maybe he isn't blind, but the finger waving experiment contradicts that).

Having some experience in this ... I know that all I can really do is what till he sheds and see if I can get him to eat. If he eats, he'll be good to go. If he doesn't ... looks very bleak.

So ... here are my thoughts

1) If its one of the May 7th babies ... then he's born at 5 weeks and could be premature ...
2) If its one of the April 3rd babies, then he's born at 10 weeks, which seems way too long, and he survived the scorching temperatures. Could this lead to defects? I think so ...
3) I use Albey's method of incubation, which includes no air holes in the tupperware where the eggs are. I had checked on the eggs less than 25 hrs earlier and there was no baby, but is it possible that he hatched out and was possibly brain damaged by lack of air? I doubt this possibility for 2 reasons. I spoke to Albey about the lack of airholes and he said that he has never had a problem. Also, the l'il guy is so tiny, I believe that his little lungs would have more than enough air in the tupperware to stay alive and well for even up to 24 hours.

One more (unlikely) possibility:

The incubator is heated by a 25 Watt lightbulb on a fixture resting on the ground. The tupperware is at ground level, and is lower than the lightbulb. I know albinos are sensitive to light ... the bulb does not shine directly into the tupperware, but maybe it was generally too bright and it blinded him? I doubt this since the plastic is slightly frosted and the lid is solid ... and if he found it too bright he could go to the other side where the angles of the light would create almost full darkness.

Any thoughts??

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to give a clear picture. (Incidently, I will post pictures either attached to this thread or as a new thread if this one moves down too far ... I'll post a few pics tonight if I can get good ones).

Thanks very much,
Joel and his first Albino baby

well, sounds to be doing ok. If he can shoot thru a hole in the hide and make it he is more than likely seeing ok, if not it was more than likely not from the light. Though putting your finger in front of a baby usually creates quite the ruckus. I would look at the adults eyelids and try to compare, a baby without eyelids is quite weird looking in my oppinion. I would think wait for the first shed and see if he will eat about the best you can do. Good luck.

Albino babies are EXTREMELY sensitive to light, especially right after hatching. It's foggy in SF right now, and when I just checked and found a new albino hatchling, both her and her sister (sister hatched yesterday) closed their eyes when I opened the tupperware, even though it is indoors on a foggy day. Even the darker hallway was too bright for the new baby, she wouldn't open her eyes except in very dark light- closet!

However, sunlight, even on a foggy day, is much brigher than we realize, much brighter than any household artificial light. Even given how sensitive babies eyes are, I don't know that a 25 watt light could blind her. But maybe, if she didn't have eyelids? Don't know. They are very sensitive though.

Do you have a pic of the baby? If your albino is not closing it's eyes in daylight, I would personally take that as a sign it either doesn't have eyelids or is blind, since all albino babies in my experience will close eyes in sunlight, especially right after hatching. The temperature swings you describe would be likely to cause defects. The "bug-eye" defect is relatively common in geckos, it is even described in the Leopsard Gecko Manual. Such animals can survive, but should never be bred.

I would not worry about the lack of air causing brain damage. Baby geckos don't use much air, I have kept animals for days after hatching in the incubator in unventilated deli cups with no problems whatsoever (I open once or twice a day). If your baby is abnormal, the temperature fluctuations during incubation or genetic defects are likely the cause.

And it's disturbing me a good deal.

My first one, an albino, was born with deformed eyelids and hind legs/vent. Her back legs were webbed behind the knees and it cause a deformity on her vent. Her eyes were wide open with no ridges above them and a little flap of sking covering half the eye. It was VERY noticable as a defect. Shee needed to be put down. Unfortunately she needed to be kept on moist papertowels (for humidity) or her eyes would become dried out and she developed a R.I. It was pretty heartbreaking.
I believe that the issue here was too much humidity during incubation. I went away for a couple days and the humidity in my incubator got out of control, 3 eggs were totally drowned in a pool of watter. I use a modified tacklebox to put my eggs it and the cells were kept separate from the rest. So it wasn't as big a loss as it could hae been.

The second one, a normal, I hatched seemed find at first, but after a day it was obvious she had deformities. It seems like her eyelids are too big for her head. She can't hold them open and now they seem pretty content to stay completely shut. She's only about 5 days old, so I'm waiting to see what happens here. Hopefully she'll be able to eat, but she already seems to have some trouble navigating her shoebox.
The second one was involved in the humidity fiasco, so I'm hoping that this was the cause. If not, I'm hoping it's not genetic because unfortunately I didn't keep very good track of my females and the clutches. I don't know if these two hatchlings are cousins or not.

There's a lot of possibilities from what I've read. This is only my second year breeding. However, there has been a good number of people claig that they had a higher percentage of dead eggs or hatchling deformities during drastic temp changes in incubation.
There's a very good chance that that was the problem with your baby as humidity seems to be with mine. Hopefully your little one will be fine.
If the lil one eats on its own I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just keep her(or him?) as a personal pet or give her to a close friend that you know will not breed her.