i need a step-by-step guide on how to incubate leopard gecko eggs? what medium should i use?

Question

i have tried a lot, but my eggs keep dying,HELP!!
how can i tell if they are alive or dead?
what are other problems with incubating eggs?
how do i solve those problems?
how should an egg feel or look like?
how moist or dry should the eggs be?
I NEED ALL THE HELP AND INFO I CAN GET!!

Answer 1

I just posted this earlier tonight so I'm sorry but I don't feel like retyping it again. I hope it can help you out a little.

First off, if this is the female's first clutch, there is a very high liklihood that they are inferile (this is not due to any problems with you but more due to a first clutch usually being less likely to survive). At the very least, you can try and hatch them, if they don't hatch, it's a good chance to get practice for your next clutch... (If the eggs are fertile, they should quickly firm up and will be covered with a thick, leathery, chalk-white membrane...If the eggs are infertile, they will remain soft and thin and somewhat sticky).
A little background:
Once your female is grown, she may lay 5 clutches of 2 eggs in one year. (Some breeders report up to 8 clutches but that is when geckos are kept in optimum conditions). If you plan to continue breeding, you may want to consider making an egg-laying chamber (a plastic container filled half-way with vermiculite that is kept moist but not soggy). The covered container has to be big enough for the female to enter (go figure), so cut a hole in the side of the container just above the layer of the vermiculite so she can get in and out. She may or may not use this, but if she does, it helps you to locate the eggs as well as keeping them moist (if the eggs dry out, the baby will die).
Incubation information:
Eggs need the right amount of moisture to thrive. They need to get their moisture from high humidity in the incubator (this will make them put on weight) rather than from the incubating medium. Too high of moisture in the incubating medium will cause eggs to be attacked by mold or get too much internal water pressure (the shell will appear stretched and semitransparent).
Incubator:
- You can use a plastic shoebox or sweater sized plastic storage box.
- add 1-1 1/2 inches of barely moistened vermiculite (you can also use a 50/50 vermiculite/perlite mix.
- You get the right moisture by using 6 parts of the medium with 4 parts water (by weight). An easier way to do this is to mix the medium with water until it feels damp but not wet.
- Place the eggs on their sides and half bury them in the medium.
- You can add a small jar of water on top of the water to maintain the high humidity.
- You need some air flow into the incubator so either remove the lid periodically, or drill tiny holes in the upper portion of each side of the box for ventilation.
- You can use a small poultry incubator such as a Hovobator if you want, or you can make your own.
- to make your own, get a submersible aquarium heater (75-100 watt) and place it at the bottom of an aquarium (at least 20 gal) and add water to a height of 1/2 to 2 inches above the heater. Then build a platform above the water level to set the egg containing box described above (this can be done by using a plexiglass structure that is easy to move in and out of the aquarium. Add a tight fitting cover of polystyrene foam to cover the top of the aquarium.
- leopard gecko sex is determined by incubating temps. if you want mostly females, incubate them at 79 deg F. If you want mostly males, incubate at 90 deg F. If you want a 50/50 mix, incubate them at 85-87 deg F.
- if the eggs are kept well and are fertile, they should hatch in 6-15 weeks.

Once the eggs hatch, they will grow faster if you keep them warmer (juvies with a heat source grew 1 1/2 times faster than those raised in 78 deg F

Forgive my lack of being able to remember, but I think leos may lay eggs that you cannot move from where they lay. I am not positive about this and this may very well be wrong but for some reason I am thinking that the eggs must stay oriented in the way that they were layed. In other words, put a mark on the top of the egg when you see it layed in the tank and put it in the incubator with that same dot up top (other wise the babies will drown in the egg). Like I said, I am not sure about that at all, but you may want to do it just in case I am remebering correctly.

Good Luck!

PS- you may want to check out the site I posted as it shows a different way to make an incubator than I described above and it sounds a little cheaper than the method I described above. But if you really want to breed a lot, I recommend the Hovobator as it isn't too expensive and saves a lot of work for you.

Answer 2

You need to know way too much for those questions here. There are many problems that can arise. For one they should be placed in vermiculite and not disturbed from the orientation that they were laid. If they were laid against the glass and are stuck there, you might have to incubate them there. They should be humid enough to not dry out and shrink, but not so humid that they swell or mold. Go to a Gecko forum such as on kingsnake.com or Reptile rooms for more assistance, but you can start by just doing a websearch for reptile ( Gecko ) egg incubation, or "breeding Geckos". It is very easy to find more details than you care to read by just doing a websearch.