Cut Egg - Results for the Curious/Scientifically Interested (Warning: Deceased)

Well I cut an egg tonight, and every time I do so I document the results with pictures and details for at least my personal files. I thought this one was interesting to share with you all because I believe we can learn from these experiences. Don't get me wrong, I approach this from as a scientific point of view as much as possible, but I cried over this baby (and he/she is now buried in the backyard). I care for every one of my little ones, even when they weren't meant to be with me in this world.

So warning now... photos of a dead hatchling to come. None are overly graphic and none bloody, but I know some people are uncomfortable seeing photos of dead animals so you have been forewarned!

I had a clutch due to hatch around the end of October, baby #1 arrived on November 1st after 78 days of incubation. I had thought there was something wrong with the second egg since about a month in (from candling), so I wasn't terribly surprised when it didn't hatch on time. I didn't expect it to hatch at all but I'm always hopeful so I left the egg be, until tonight when it deflated and was leaking. Just in case there was a hatchling needing assistance I cut the egg, though I expected to find an only partially formed embryo. Unfortunately the baby was much further developed than I expected, which I think is part of the reason I felt such a loss. However, it was still undeveloped in some significant ways and so not meant to survive outside the egg, so I'm glad it did not hatch. Here are my observations and photos, for what they are worth.

Here is the little kiddo when I popped it out of the egg and let it dry a little (though it's just crumpled because it was squeezed in that deflated egg). Perfect mini 10 fingers and toes, not so perfect other things. As you can see in this photo, the skull and skin over it did not completely close, so there is a small hole on the top of the head. You can see the head/face are not shaped correctly either (you can see that better in the second photo however), though the eyes were fully formed.

Here is a side shot of the head/face, showing an overly short snout, a misshapen jaw, and the dip in the head where there was the hole.

Here is the underside - you can see that the belly is not completely closed (though it was covered in a thin, transparent layer of skin) where babies attach to their eggs. I have had babies with small open umbillical areas here when hatched that closed within a day or two, but never been able to see inside the abdominal cavity like this.

Final shot, showing the belly again and also the misshapen back legs that reminded me of frog legs with the bulbous upper portion.

The good news? I have a healthy, gorgeous clutchmate who weighed in at a healthy 2.1 grams today at 2 1/2 weeks old. This is the first crowned hatchling I've hatched and I believe it will be red or dark extreme harley with a lot of cream, considering what it's showing already! (Parents are Miracle Max and Athena for those who would be interested.) I was extremely surprised when such a gem popped out of that egg, and am thankful I have it to dote over in the wake of the passing of its clutchmate. Here are some unplanned photos from tonight, so he/she is unfired and the quality isn't great, but you can get an idea!

Hope you got something out of my little attempt at a scientific-y post, I figure the more we can learn about these under-developed kiddos the better, especially if they do hatch. In this case I don't think it's genetic as I had all healthy hatchlings from this pairing last year, it was just one of those fluke things. Not meant to survive outside the egg so it developed as far as it was going to, and then probably perished after that point. RIP little one.

Egg Updates

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.

Girl Interrupted, Part II

Let me just start by saying YAY! :) Liebchen ended up laying me a lovely set of eggs, both looking beautifully calcified and definitely fertile. I am glad I did not upset her enough to cause any problems last night.

Perdi was digging in her laybox tonight when I was misting... fingers crossed STILL! All I could see was her back legs and tail, the rest of her was buried. :)

And Pâté should be laying here in the next week or two, I realized. She last laid on the 29th of May and then was with Frank on the 3rd. Going by others' experiences and mine with Sausage (the gargoyle female who I bred last year) I don't expect eggs to be laid as soon or often as the cresteds (so we're probably looking more at the 2 week range). Last year I kept track of the number of days between clutches for all my laying females, and found that generally my crestie girls had somewhere in the 30's (days) between clutches, whereas my gargoyle laid clutches with the time between being in the mid to late 40's. I can't wait for gargoyle eggs! They are so much fun to hatch out - the babies are always little fatties (and sometimes extremely sassy, I'll have to explain Weenie's name sometime as an example) - they make the crestie babies look incredibly fragile and delicate.

I just can't wait for babies in general this year! All new pairings and geckos who haven't produced offspring yet, so it's always a fun roll of the dice. However, I've learned to have patience. I put the incubators where I don't see them often until I'm expected hatching to occur. Otherwise it's just too easy to check check check, when really it's best to leave your eggs alone! :)

Lesson Learned: Take Inventory.

Tonight I was doing the rounds misting everyone and checking layboxes, etc... pulled out the one in Liebchen's cage and saw the end of a beauty (eggs feel almost like pearls or something to me when I find them)! Got so excited, set the laybox aside to do when I was done, and finished misting. Then I got everything set up to candle and mark the eggs, and brought the laybox and incubator into the bathroom to do so. Peeked at the bottom of the box (it's clear) to see where I'd seen the egg was, and started carefully digging into the moss (I use long-stranded sphagnum).

Uhh...... saw egg.... saw leg of moving gecko. CRAP. Liebchen was still in there and not finished. :( I felt horrible. I didn't see another egg (though I wasn't looking I was too busy trying to get her covered back where she was)... so she may have still been in the process of laying. That or she was just resting a bit before burying them. That really should have been my first hint - cresties bury the eggs very well and the fact that I was not seeing two eggs side by side clearly in the bottom of the laybox should have tipped me off. But I let my excitement get ahold of me.

So lesson learned? Always inventory your girls before going in for eggs! There are a ton of hiding spots in Liebchen's tub and I don't always see her, so I just thought it nothing out of the norm. But once I saw that egg I should have popped open hiding places to make sure she was out of the box.

Now we wait, and cross our fingers AND toes for two eggs. I will be horrified if I disturbed her so badly that she holds onto the other egg and binds up or something. But really I just uncovered her butt (frogbutt) and a foot, so hopefully she didn't think too much of it. She didn't come out of the box at least, and I didn't hear or feel her moving when I was taking the laybox back to her tub.

Will update tomorrow when she's out of there! Lesson learned, sorry Liebchen.

Eggsellent!

I have tried a few times recently to breed a pair of gargoyles - Frank and Pâté. Frank was the father to last year's gargoyle hatchings and he's a really nice (not to mention very handsome) gecko. He is gentle with the ladies and was great with Sausage last year. But this year everytime I've introduced him to Pâté she has repeatedly done the gargoyle version of "Heck no! I have a headache!" They do a pretty loud squawk and shake their tail - very obvious "back off" signs. She'd do it whenever he touched her, even if it was just his tongue as he smelled her. I gave it up for a bit because... as I expected...

Pâté was gravid! :) Found a pair of beautiful, perfectly calcified eggs tonight. They're most likely infertile "duds", but I know her previous owner had her with a male at ont point, so I will incubate the eggs until they either go bad or hatch! Female cresteds and gargoyles can store sperm for a very long time, I've even heard of situations where it was over a year! I don't throw eggs away unless I'm positive they're bad. I didn't see a "cheerio" in either one of these eggs, but they did have some veining visible. I do think they're infertile, however. But in any case, I'm pleased she laid (first time she has with me) and she should be more accepting to Frank when I try again in a few days. Sausage did the exact same behaviors last year when I tried breeding her to Frank, so I was definitely curious if the same situation was ocurring - and it was! Patience is definitely a virtue with my gang this year. Especially since Frank is not exactly quick about his business, he'll probably need a whole night - he likes to romance the ladies. ;)

I took a photo of the newly laid gargoyle eggs next to the fertile crestie eggs I have that are a week old, just to show some scale for folks who may not have both (or either!) species. Gargoyle eggs always seem so huge to me! And they *are* certainly much bigger than crested eggs, both in length and circumference. I mark the eggs with the spot I think is "up", the date laid, and a letter identifying the female who laid it. The brown spots on the crestie egg (on the right) are due to staining from the substrate in the laybox, in the less-calcified areas of the egg (though it is still in good condition).



I also finally got a picture of the magic "cheerio", for those who may not have seen one and had no idea what I was talking about all this time. ;) This egg is one of Liebchen's, and so is a week old. Can't really miss the red circle on the left, but that's what you're looking for in fertile eggs. That's the beginning of a crestie baby! The other spots on the eggs you see are the brown ones you saw in the previous photo, they're not internal. This picture was taken with a miniature flashlight behind the egg (which is how I candle all my eggs).



So there you go! I'm pleased with the progress on the crestie eggs (the cheerios have definitely gotten larger and thicker), and I think I will have additional clutches to add to the incubator from Perdi and Panic anytime now. :) Hopefully I can also get a successful breeding out of Frank and Pâté soon, I think they will make some lovely red babies.

And as a final note - Hida, the gargoyle gecko who went through the ordeal in the mail the other day, is doing great! She cleaned her food dish the first night she was here, so she's not too stressed. I really like her already, she's pretty and has an interesting personality.

Woo!! First Fertile Eggs For This Year!

Found my first fertile eggs of the season while taking care of everybody tonight. :D Super excited, they're from Inigo x Liebchen. It's only been a week and a half since I bred them! When I candled them the "cheerios" were pretty small, so they may have been *just* laid, or they might be a bit funky since this is her first breeding ever. Last year with a first year female I didn't get as many babies as I typically do with an experienced gal, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are some funky eggs this year - I'm going to have several first timers!

But in any case, they're nicely calcified and I'll candle them again in a few days to see if the "cheerio" has grown and looks a little more normal. I'm just happy they're fertile, this means I should be getting at least some good eggs out of her this season now. Next to try is Panic! Well, actually we've tried twice with no luck. There's this fake hollow log in Inigo's cage that I need to remove the day before (I always forget and then if I remove it at night he freaks out - such a sensitive soul)... and they always seem to get stuck up inside at the solid end of it, where breeding is impossible. So, note to self, better planning!

Totally ending on the happy note though. Fertile eggs! YAY!!! Now the waiting begins. I have to put the incubator somewhere I don't look very often or I get obsessed, even though they're a good two and a half months away from hatching, give or take. Can't wait for my first (hopefully) creamy lavender babies. :D

I also got two more geckos to their new owner, and I am happy about that. I know they'll be well-cared for and loved at their new home, and that is always a great thing! I've sold quite a few now, I'll need to play tank tetris soon to make sure everybody is in the best digs possible!