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Incubating leopard gecko eggs

F

Flagg

New member
Anyone here familiar with hatching leopard geckos?

I've searched various care sheets and lg forums but have found differing info.

To incubate for males, do you keep the temp around 88-90 for the entire incubation or just the first 2 weeks then drop it down to 83?

My first egg just hatched at 40 days old, it was at 88 the whole time. It was my first leopard gecko egg and seemed sort of soft and I didn't even think it was viable but sure enough, a couple days ago when I went to check the tubs and let in some fresh air, there was a new hatchling, a mack snow as I was hoping for .

Since it hatched so quickly and the temp was at 88 the whole time I am fearful that it might be a high-temp female that will be sterile and aggressive.

When can you sex them clearly?

Just hatched
Picture354.jpg


Looks like it shed...
Picture357.jpg
 
Hey There!!

What a cute thing :D I can't wait to get my own. There is a fourm member, Nanci who is Tangerine Gecko at: www.tangerinegecko.com She's awesome!! She has a comprehensive care sheet, has great links to reliable information (and forums), loves cornsnakes and is a great person all around.

Good Luck!

Tonya
 
I have 5 more in the incubators currently and one of my 2 females , a super hypo tangerine carot tail baldy, looks like she's getting ready to drop 2 more eggs of the same type.

So yes, I will probably be selling these, though this mack snow pictured if its a male I will be keeping.

I have not worked out how they can be shipped or anything, I might just try selling them at the local reptile show along with any corn snakes I hatch later this summer.

If USPS will ship them, which I believe they will, then I might be offering some for sale to be shipped USPS Express.
 
Eric:
You have a fabulous resource in Jeremy Letkey of Letkeysleos.com. He's local, a good guy and very knowledgeable. He's at the table next to me at every Wheaton show and he does the Grayslake shows as well. I sure he would love to help you out with any questions you might have.
Terri
PS - Missed you last show, I even brought cake!
 
It's most likely to be a male at those incubation temperatures - if you have a 10X magnifying lens you can tell sex from the pores quite early on (if you can hold the little guy still). Females will show smooth scales or very slight dimples, but a male will show pores in the scales where an adult male has them. Otherwise, you can sex from a month or two old if you're careful by the hemipenal bulges.

From what I understand 90+ is most likely to produce "hot" females.

The "lower to 83" is mostly if you want to enhance the darker colourations (for example, making very deep blacks, dark muddy tangerines or "chocolate" albinos) - I must admit I've never deliberately incubated for male myself - I incubated at 83-85 throughout incubation and got mixed sexes.
 
Darn I miss the edit function.

As I was saying, I don't plan on any further high temp incubations to get males, I just did it for the first couple eggs as I would prefer a male snow. I didn't even think the first egg was viable but it hatched out apparently quite well. Plus there was only a 50% chance it was snow anyway.

My actual store bought hovabator incubator is set to 82-83 and will stay that way for both leo and corn eggs.
 
This is my first Leopard Gecko hatchling, my others I got as adults.

Is there any trick to getting them to eat? he's about 4-5 days old now I think, and has had his first shed a couple days ago.

I provided a small shallow dish with small mealworms, and just today added some ZooMed Leopard Gecko food which looks like dried flies with other supplements. Perhaps he will show more interest in small dubia nymphs?

He shows no interest in food and has not defecated yet. Of course he could be eating and drinking in the dark when I am not watching but this being the first one of course I am a bit concerned.

He seems healthy and active otherwise, and wants to hide all the time, but the one or two times I had him out he calmed down quickly. Just doesn't seem hungry or thirsty yet.
 
We find most of ours don't seem to start eating until about 7 to 10 days after hatching, the first year we had hatchlings we were really worried, but we were assured they live on the yolk they absorbed before hatching.

We count the exact number of mini mealworms placed in the feeding dish and if none are missing, i.e. eaten, by the 7th day we try teasing the hatchling with a mini mealworm by dragging it slowly across the floor of the enclosure, (we use paper towel substrate), with a pair of forceps or long tweezers, if the baby starts chasing it then we let it go to crawl across the floor and if he's hungry he'll go for it. We do this in the evening with the lights down low. If he refuses after a few attempts, we try again the next evening if none are missing from the feed bowl :)

Sometimes we've found we have to show them where the water bowl is and what's in it by gently dipping their front end in or by dripping a drop on the nose :)

Hope that helps some and good luck, he's a little beauty!
 
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