Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have many crested eggs in my incubator. Of the last 3 clutches (all from different breeding pairs), I have only had a 50% hatch success rate (only 1 making it out of the egg). The other egg would have a tear in it, but the baby didn't make it out. After a week or so I cut them open to find a fully? developed baby inside dead. Is this problem common (only 1 egg hatching)? I am incubating at around 79-81 degrees since my house is warm, and they have been hatching at 52 days almost like clockwork. So they are about 8 days early, maybe this is the problem? I have been playing with humidity, as I thought the eggs may have been too dry and the babies couldn't get out. Only the bad ones mold on me and the rest look white/off white and good to me. The babies that have come out of the eggs are doing great. I have my eggs in damp vermiculite in a Hovabater incubator in vented rubbermaid containers. They are buried so about 75% of the tops of the eggs are uncovered. Maybe they should be covered more (or less)? Any advice??

Thanks,
Kati

Bumping up the temp by a few degrees may help. I haven't hatched gecko eggs in awhile but recently I had a green anole egg do the same thing as yours. My first egg hatched when it got up to 85F but the second only managed to make a tear when it was closer to 80F. Since then I've kept it as close to 85F as possible and the last four eggs have hatched without any problems.

are you crazy? you're recommending that crested geckos be hatched at a higher temperature than she is already incubating them at? cresteds are recommended to incubate at 72-76 degrees. a FEW degrees fluctuation at most. in the lower end of the spectrum, the geckos will typically use up more of the yolk, and be larger/more healthy because of it. temperatures above 80-85 in adult crested geckos for more than an hour or two can easily kill them! let alone the eggs i'm sure.

No I am not crazy I was referring to green anole eggs when I said 85F! I only said that she MAY need to bump it by a FEW degrees! Besides depending on the thermometer it may be a few degrees off. I wasn't telling her to cook them if she knew that it was too hot. Maybe the reason why her success rate is so low is because of the 76-80F temp that she is already providing them. I figured you could have at least told her that directly instead of focusing on an attack on me! That was just the 2 cents that I had at that time.

"I am incubating at around 79-81 degrees since my house is warm, and they have been hatching at 52 days almost like clockwork. So they are about 8 days early, maybe this is the problem"
stating clearly that they are hatching early. that is the first sign that they are likely too hot at what she is incubating at right now.
another thing she should look at is her breeding female ( and males) diet. if it is not balanced it may lead to weak babies. anothony caponetto told me that he went from about a 50-60% hatch rate when he was feeding peach baby food and crickets, to a 100% hatch rate with crested gecko diet and dusted crickets. along with the altered diet, he was making sure to wait until the female was atleast 35 grams before breeding.

Yeah, my first thought was that the temperatures are simply too high--they're too high for adult cresties, let alone eggs.
You do see babies dying in the egg when the temperatures are too high, so that's a reasonable explanation.

I lowered the temperature a bit in the house, and switched from vermiculite to perlite as an incubation medium and the babies are all hatching out now unless the eggs are bad. Thanks so much for all of your help.