Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am having a problem with a clutch of Lepida Eggs. I incubated at 82 for 83 days now and non are hatching. They all have babies in them and look great. It looked like one would hatch (there was a slit in the egg as if it tried to get out), but it ended up dying in the egg. I took it out, and it was perfect. Not sure why it died. Anyways, my question is how long is gestation supposed to be. I though it was 60-75 days. Yesterday, I noticed the eggs looked like they were sweating out a liquid. Should I start popping these eggs open before they all die or what? Any ideas would help, thanks.

just typed this huge reply. click preview, then go back, its gone. thats a stupid glitch to have on this site..... anyhow... the gist of what i said was try lowering the humidity and the rule i go by is if they look good then just wait for them to pop out.
good luck
justin

Since many people are interested in this, I thought I would post the not so happy followup.

To recoup the entire story:

My female Lepida laid 15 eggs. They were all fertile. I incubated them at 82F in vermiculite. They were all developing very well until the second month, then in 1 week 7 eggs went bad for no apparent reason. The other 8 eggs were developing well for the full incubation period of (what I had read to be) 60-75 days. At 80 days, I started getting concerned that none of the eggs were hatching. I noticed some of the eggs were sweating and collapsing. I decided to pop the eggs. The first 3 were dead in the egg (fully developed). The next 5 I hatched out were all alive and fully developed. 2 died in the next couple of days. 1 was still alive but very weak. 2 were really strong. To make matters worse, since all the babies were really dehydrated, I put a very shallow water dish in the cage (about 1.4" of water). The next day, one of the strong babies drowned in it. Don't know how, since the water was half as high as the body of the animal. Anyways, at this point I have 1 weak one, 1 strong one. Just posting this, so others can learn from my experience.

I included some pics of the female laying in here egg tank.

Thanks for reading.

Alec Feldman