first baby with the craziest pattern for me...BIG downside though

I think this info should be talked about to let others that are new to all of this that it is not all great when you breed animals...... There will be plenty of hard times and problems.....

I agree, Gregg. I don't think Leopard Gecko breeding is a easy or financially lucrative as many people think, especially if we are going to be caring and ethical breeders.

Thats my quote Marcia.... LOL :P

Dan, first of all I am very sorry about your hatchling. I know how upsetting that can be. Last season was a bad one for me in terms of deformities, infertile eggs, full term deads etc. I changed the way I supplemented for this season and wow. It has really made a huge difference. I have only had 3 or 4 deformities out of hundreds of hatchlings, and about that many eggs go bad during incubation. Zero full term dead babies.

I am 100% sure the problems I have had in previous seasons was a direct result of the way I supplemented my geckos. It was not from inbreeding.

So I would ask those of you that are having problems these questions: What are you using for calcium and vitamin supplementation? What are you using to gut load your mealworms and/or superworms? Also, what substrate and how wet are you incubating your eggs (I know, unrelated but I am curious)?

Maybe we can get to the bottom of this.

Originally Posted by KelliH

I am 100% sure the problems I have had in previous seasons was a direct result of the way I supplemented my geckos. It was not from inbreeding.

What exactly did you change about the way you were supplementing?

marcia, thanks for the kind words, i never thought for a second that breedling any herp would be a bed of roses, however i did not expect it to be so hellish for me this season.

kelli, thanks for the kind words also

i used repcal with vitamin d3 earlier in the season (dec-march) now i use rep cal straight calcium and offer vionate weekly, i gutload the mealworms with carrot, sweet potato, collared greens, escarole,mustard greens, cucumber, zuccini and yellow squash, thats been the recipe for the last 3 years, probably going to change soon, i plan on buying some of codys gutload very soon

Do you use certified organic vegetables? Maybe that is part of the problem. Many pesticides used by farmers have horrible effects on egg bearers. Just a thought.

Originally Posted by A_Kendergirl

Do you use certified organic vegetables? Maybe that is part of the problem. Many pesticides used by farmers have horrible effects on egg bearers. Just a thought.

This is true. Residual pesticides apparently can cause birth defects and infertility problems in herps. I researched it online a while back but please don't ask me for details because I lost em in a hard drive crash... :deer:

Do you use certified organic vegetables? Maybe that is part of the problem.

Organic vegetables are grown in manure, which can be very high in nitrogen AND bacteria. Veggies should always be washed before feeding them to anything... even bugs.

I am 100% sure the problems I have had in previous seasons was a direct result of the way I supplemented my geckos.

I have a very strong hunch that is what's going on with some of my problems, too. More than half of my losses this year are directly connected with a double power failure and 30% of my breeding stock being new, but there is definitely something else going on with the rest. I do not inbreed, so that's not the problem with my geckos... and I have been extremely careful in choosing my new breeder stock from reputable breeders and NOT gecko mills.

Last year, I switched from my normal regimen of RepCal calcium w/VitD and Herptivite to the T-Rex Sandfire Leopard Gecko Dust, and had ZERO fertile eggs for over 2 months until I switched back! This year is the first year I have used Vionate in my gutload, and I strongly suspect that is what's going on. It is the only thing I have done differently from previous years. The next time I change products/regimens, I am going to use a 'control' group and NOT switch all of my colonies at once!

Interesting stuff about the supplements! I wonder what other people have experienced.

Going back to what Marcia was saying about how any person could get a few geckos and breed them and label themselves a breeder. Shucks... thats me!! lol... not really though. I am new to the game true. But I have taken care since I decided that I would like to move from the realm of pet owner to pet MAKER to have a game plan in place. I sat down and figured out if I really want to do this, if I could handle it, if I knew what I was getting into, and if I really wanted the responsibility of finding homes for the animals I brought into the world.

The answer to all those questions was yes in my case. I then went further and decided exactly what I wanted to breed, what was going to be interesting to me and to others, what would be lucritive on all fronts.

I researched and read all the info I could, asked questions on forums, set up a site to attract other breeders and hobbiests. In short, I made sure I had done my homework. Now, being a newbie I have made mistakes. And yup... I'll make a few more as well I am sure....

BUT....

In all that research and study and reading and forum searching I have found a depressing amount of "OMG I have eggs! What do I do??" and "I just got another 4 normals and now I have over 50 eggs in the incubator" and " If I get another 5 geckos I'll have more than the next guy" statements. I have seen pics of breeders that would make you cry, I have read posts about people feeding thier gravid females 8 mealies a day. Basically.... people who are dangerous, to themselves,to thier animals and to the breeding community as a whole.

Not really on the topic,but Marcias statements hit a chord with me.

Interesting on the supps and the difference they make. I look forward to hearing more on this, even more interesting to me is the fact that you really need to be aware of all aspects of the geckos world, right down to the food that goes into the geckos food. I have been using filtered water and organic veggies, non-processed grains and stuff as food for my feeders basically because that what we have in the house. Never even occoured to me that pesticides and such on some vegs would hurt my geckos....DOH....