Tonight while feeding (and checking lay boxes like I do nightly) I was *thrilled* to find 2 beautiful, perfectly calcified eggs in Panic and Liebchen's laybox. Since Liebchen laid a dud less than two weeks ago, these are finally some more from Panic! :D I'm very excited, her first clutch of the season only had one fertile egg - but these two both have beautiful cheerios!
I candled the other eggs I've got incubating to see what's going on and it's a good thing I had started out with my happy two brand-new fertile eggs, because otherwise it was not good news. The remaining egg from Liebchen's first clutch of the season is not good either. It's hardly developed at all. I will continue to incubate for awhile longer it but I have no hope for it. And then I candled her next set, and sadly they did not look good either. :( Both appeared to have developed to a point (I could see where there are eyes), but have since stopped developing.
This happened to me last year with a virgin female - I ended up cutting the eggs open since they never molded and I found partially developed embryos that had simply stopped developing for some reason or another. I'm guessing it will be the same situation this year unfortunately. And since for her last clutch Liebchen laid only 1 egg, and an infertile one at that, I put her in for another successful copulation with Inigo tonight, just to see if we can get some babies at all for the year. The female last year produced 6 fertile eggs - 4 hatched healthy babies and 2 I cut open and found embryos. The second clutch from Liebchen developed further than the first, so I'm crossing my fingers that third time is a charm!
I was a little concerned that perhaps it was a problem with Inigo since there was 0% success with Liebchen so far. However, that concern vanished - Panic seems to be having more success since I saw the baby in her egg move tonight. :) There was a very obvious little curled tail and it moved around quite a bit. So I was thrilled to see that! Hopefully the two tonight will develop just as well. Inigo is such a beautiful gecko (as are the ladies) and I really want to produce some of his offspring! Though I gotta mention, he's so weird when breeding... he never lets go on his own so when I finally got them separated tonight he ended up popping out both hemipenes. I'm hoping he get's them all tucked away safely. It was certainly strange looking, I haven't seen that before.
Also tried for Pongo and Perdi again, unsuccessfully. He's just such a lover, not a fighter, and she's the opposite. He immediately starts chirping and licking but as soon as he starts touching her she bites like crazy at his face. A few rounds of that and he won't even try anymore (not that I can blame him)! I am dying for some of his kids so I'm going to keep trying with them - who knows, maybe we'll catch her on a good day. She *has* been digging in her laybox again so maybe there's still hope without another copulation, but we'll see. If worst comes to worst I may breed her to Wesley - he cannot be deterred, and he always produces spotty kids. I haven't been disappointed with any of his offspring and it might be interesting to see what that cross would produce.
Cross your fingers for eggs! Lots of healthy, fertile eggs! :D A happy stable temperature is definitely making a difference, everybody is even eating more. That's a huge weight off my shoulders.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
A Sad Tail
I apologize for not updating the blog in such a long time. Life for me has been changing, and to be honest, the geckos were the ones stagnating! The girls are not laying - I was getting quite frustrated.
I think a lot of the problem is a result of the conditions caused by the apartment I live in. It is an older building and lacks insulation along with having single pane windows. The gecko room's back wall has full southern exposure with no shade, and any day that it's sunny it heats that room up like an oven. That is not to mention the literally history-making heat wave we have been having for months now. It doesn't matter how low I put the AC (and I've closed all the vents except the one to that room), how many fans I have blowing with cold, wet towels and on bottles of ice.... keeping that room's temperature at a safe level has been a constant challenge and major stresser. What stresses me out the most is knowing that the geckos are experiencing a temperature swing every day, which is not good for them. It's not a huge difference, but enough to make me nervous.
With all that said, I don't find it too surprising that the girls are having a bizarre season (also that they're all virgin females and like I've said before, you can't predict them at all). In fact, a few nights ago Liebchen laid me a dud. One egg in the clutch, and infertile. What in the world!? And Perdi, Panic, and Pate (apparently I like P's) have not laid at all (besides the one egg I did get from Panic several months ago). The first set of eggs of Liebchen's were fertile but as I candled them along the way they were not developing normally and I was losing hope for them. Also a few days ago, one of those eggs went moldy. I candled the other and expect it to do the same. Thankfully the few remaining eggs look good.
So today I moved all the geckos to my parent's basement, to the closet of the bedroom I will soon be living in as well. It stays much much cooler there in the summer, and I'm able to control the temperature well with a space heater in the winter. Once everyone settles in I expect them to be better off and for behavior to normalize a bit. I may rebreed everyone, though I have to weigh that with how late in the season it is. It may work out for the best even, since in the winter it's actually warmer with the space heater in that closet than it is in the summer (and warmer temps are a cue for breeding/egg-laying behavior).
However, the sad part of this "tale", is a tail. Obviously all precautions were taken to minimize stress on the geckos during the move, but you can only do so much. Inigo was freaking out when I put him in a car and I actually expected his tail to be the one to pop off. Wesley also freaks out when traveling, and I've thought he was going to lose his a few times. However, tonight when I put everyone to bed I got a look at everyone but Perdi (she sleeps under her paper towels) and tails were all intact except one. I found that my crown jewel, my gorgeous, outstanding, perfect Pongo lost his tail in the move. It may not seem like a big deal to some, but it is to me. I've never had any of my geckos lose a tail in my care, though I do realize it was bound to happen sometime. Thing is - Pongo is a super dalmation, but a huge amount of spots were on his tail. He easily had well over a hundred spots on it alone. I'm just glad I have photos of him "before". *sigh* I'm sorry you were so stressed Pongo, I was doing this to try and make your life better.
So right now my life is being turned upside down, and I hope that something that stabilizes is the geckos. I know they will take some time to settle in (they took weeks when I first moved them to this apartment), but I have high hopes that their lives will improve dramatically with steady temperatures, etc.
And that is how things stand right now! Crazy, basically! The geckos have been moved, and next to go will be me and the cat. We're both suffering from the heat, since to keep the gecko room cool the rest of the apartment was getting no AC. I'm moving due to financial issues and also because of problems like I mentioned with the temperature (not to mention I cannot make it through another winter here - just to watch tv I was in layers, covered with a blanket, half in a down sleeping bag, and in front of a space heater). Wish us all luck, it's going to be an interesting next few weeks.
I think a lot of the problem is a result of the conditions caused by the apartment I live in. It is an older building and lacks insulation along with having single pane windows. The gecko room's back wall has full southern exposure with no shade, and any day that it's sunny it heats that room up like an oven. That is not to mention the literally history-making heat wave we have been having for months now. It doesn't matter how low I put the AC (and I've closed all the vents except the one to that room), how many fans I have blowing with cold, wet towels and on bottles of ice.... keeping that room's temperature at a safe level has been a constant challenge and major stresser. What stresses me out the most is knowing that the geckos are experiencing a temperature swing every day, which is not good for them. It's not a huge difference, but enough to make me nervous.
With all that said, I don't find it too surprising that the girls are having a bizarre season (also that they're all virgin females and like I've said before, you can't predict them at all). In fact, a few nights ago Liebchen laid me a dud. One egg in the clutch, and infertile. What in the world!? And Perdi, Panic, and Pate (apparently I like P's) have not laid at all (besides the one egg I did get from Panic several months ago). The first set of eggs of Liebchen's were fertile but as I candled them along the way they were not developing normally and I was losing hope for them. Also a few days ago, one of those eggs went moldy. I candled the other and expect it to do the same. Thankfully the few remaining eggs look good.
So today I moved all the geckos to my parent's basement, to the closet of the bedroom I will soon be living in as well. It stays much much cooler there in the summer, and I'm able to control the temperature well with a space heater in the winter. Once everyone settles in I expect them to be better off and for behavior to normalize a bit. I may rebreed everyone, though I have to weigh that with how late in the season it is. It may work out for the best even, since in the winter it's actually warmer with the space heater in that closet than it is in the summer (and warmer temps are a cue for breeding/egg-laying behavior).
However, the sad part of this "tale", is a tail. Obviously all precautions were taken to minimize stress on the geckos during the move, but you can only do so much. Inigo was freaking out when I put him in a car and I actually expected his tail to be the one to pop off. Wesley also freaks out when traveling, and I've thought he was going to lose his a few times. However, tonight when I put everyone to bed I got a look at everyone but Perdi (she sleeps under her paper towels) and tails were all intact except one. I found that my crown jewel, my gorgeous, outstanding, perfect Pongo lost his tail in the move. It may not seem like a big deal to some, but it is to me. I've never had any of my geckos lose a tail in my care, though I do realize it was bound to happen sometime. Thing is - Pongo is a super dalmation, but a huge amount of spots were on his tail. He easily had well over a hundred spots on it alone. I'm just glad I have photos of him "before". *sigh* I'm sorry you were so stressed Pongo, I was doing this to try and make your life better.
So right now my life is being turned upside down, and I hope that something that stabilizes is the geckos. I know they will take some time to settle in (they took weeks when I first moved them to this apartment), but I have high hopes that their lives will improve dramatically with steady temperatures, etc.
And that is how things stand right now! Crazy, basically! The geckos have been moved, and next to go will be me and the cat. We're both suffering from the heat, since to keep the gecko room cool the rest of the apartment was getting no AC. I'm moving due to financial issues and also because of problems like I mentioned with the temperature (not to mention I cannot make it through another winter here - just to watch tv I was in layers, covered with a blanket, half in a down sleeping bag, and in front of a space heater). Wish us all luck, it's going to be an interesting next few weeks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)