tremper incubation method

Seamus-

Gourmet Rodent has hundreds of breeder leopard geckos. They actually have some of the nicest hypo tangerines around, but they also have (or had) a wholesale contract with either PetCo or Petsmart. I would bet Mark Bell has even more leos than Gourmet Rodent, though he has talked recently about getting out of them alltogether.

I agree that there must be something missing from Tremper's recipe. One might get better results if there was a less drastic fluctuation, meaning incubate at 80 for 2-3 weeks, 85 for 1 week, 90 for the duration or something like that. Hmm I may have to do another experiment this year...

I tried that Kelli, no eggs even hatched out of the 6 or so clutches I rose to 85 and then 90, sad huh? Maybe 80-85??? I don't think I'll be increasing any temps this year on any fo my eggs, I lost way to many!!! Even Tremper acknowledged that there was an increased amount of eggs that failed to hatch using this method.

Mark Bell out of leos!!!! I hope so, I mean why not, I'm sure he could make more cash off other animals, like ball pythons, crested geckos, bearded dragons, I don't know. Right now the leo market could really use a boost with the Bells dropping that project, crossing my fingers!!!! The least they could do is drop production.

I do not understand why Ron Tremper keeps getting credit for this widely used, and not-so-new incubation method! It is actually an "old-school" technique, and is well documented as far back as 1988 (or earlier) when Gutzke and Crews were doing their studies on temperature vs. gender. Heck, if you take a look at the old version of "The Leopard Gecko Manual", Dr. Brian E. Viets has an entire section devoted to his studies from 1993, including photos of the various pigment variations that were produced by manipulating incubation temperatures!

I do not see any problem with incubating for 'color' any more than incubating for gender. It occurs naturally with the fluctuations of the average temperatures in the nests of reptiles in the wild. Besides, if incubation temperature was the sole determining factor in the overall pigmentation of Leopard Geckos, then the males of the species would have less melanin than females by virtue of their higher incubation temperatures, and this is simply not the case.

This is the first topic I've ever read on this forum and man is it a good one. I always been curious about this method. To the point of I personally e-mailed Ron Trempor. Here is his reply

Well, all I can say is that I collect eggs once a week here, so
14 more days at the cool temp works for me. To be safe go 20 days
at the lower temps.
Switching the eggs has never been a real problem here.
It is a known fact that keeping embryos at a constant 90F does kill
a small percentage of the eggs. This percentage is less than 1-2%,
which is well worth it to get the best color.
Reasons why some folks fail are:
* poor nutrition in the adult females
* incubators that are not performing correctly
* improper mositure levels
* no air circulation
* presence to deadly ammonia due to some infertile eggs spoiling
* bad record keeping
The bottom line is that if this technique did not work then I would have
been out of business long long ago.
If folks want to make darker pigments then that is fine.
Regards,
Ron Tremper.........


Now I feel after all the learning and insits there really is something else. I kept up with kelliH and she has an awesome rept for having great leos. But anyways what I'm confused about right now is someone like Alberto who buy from Ron but the doesn't use that incubation method produces very nice leos right off the back from the breeders. I know this for a fact cause he cleary stated he doesn't use that and he bought some giants last year from Ron and the offsrign where very nice. So if it doesn't get passed on then what? What about males do most breed then at 87-88 and not 90? I'm askign abotu all morphs

To the point of I personally e-mailed Ron Trempor. Here is his reply

Well, all I can say is that I collect eggs once a week here, so
14 more days at the cool temp works for me. To be safe go 20 days
at the lower temps.
Switching the eggs has never been a real problem here.
It is a known fact that keeping embryos at a constant 90F does kill
a small percentage of the eggs. This percentage is less than 1-2%,
which is well worth it to get the best color.
Reasons why some folks fail are:
* poor nutrition in the adult females
* incubators that are not performing correctly
* improper mositure levels
* no air circulation
* presence to deadly ammonia due to some infertile eggs spoiling
* bad record keeping

But if that is so, why have I always had such fantastic success rates when I incubate at 88-89 for males and 80-82 for females? I think I have perfected my incubation techniques as well as my record keeping skills to a tee. Not to mention I know how to keep an adult female healthy! Hmmm more food for thought...oke2:

Hello
I just like to say something about this. I do have some experience on Tremper albinos and this is what I think about the all situation. I agree that who is using this method should state as such. I did try this method on a portion of my eggs in a little different way then Ron describes it. I had eggs in 82 dg. incubator for 2 weeks, move them to the 85 dg. incubator for a week and then move them in the 88 dg. incubator (I do not set any of my incubators at 90 deg. because I like to stay on the safe side). I thought that way would have been safer for the eggs instead of moving them to the hottest temps right the way. The result was that, like kelli experience, not all the eggs hatched as females. I did not have any deformities and I lost the same average of eggs that I lose with the normal way, very few, like 2-3%. The difference in this matter with the other breeders with experience in leos that say they lost a lot of eggs maybe is that I visited Ron facility and he buries the eggs in the perlite at list 2" and does not keep them on the top like most breeders do, and that is the way I did it. Maybe been under the perlite protects the eggs from the big change in the temps? Just a thought of mine there. As the quality of the females, the difference was not about the quality of the females but on hatching the nice ones in a little better percentage then the normal way. With the fact that not all the eggs hatch as a female and not better looking made me not want to change the incubation method. Stated this, I like to add that Trempers albinos have been improving every years, and people that think that the change in the colors from the original brown ones to the nice tangerine ones is only because of his incubation methods are wrong (this is my opinion after years of experience with Ron line). I like to add that I still hatch a portion of my albinos with that brawn colors but I chose to sell those at the local show for very little $ instead of putting them on my site. What you see on my website as breeders and for sale are the best of hundreds that we hatch every year that is why I charge some top $ for the high end ones. Someone in this posts said that Trempers albino that hatched with his method may turn brawn if kept at lower temps then normal, yes that is true, but not because they hatched with that method, but because that is a studied fact that albinos get darker if kept in cooler temps because of the melanine in their skin. In addition to this, I can add that in my experience I have in this albinos is that not all of them will turn dark but some will, even if they were incubated at strait 82 deg. Now if we all know that, and we know that a rest period from breeding without cooling the geckos is as safe and healthy for your geckos, why should we cool them down and take a chance on loosing the nice colors of some of our albino (bell, rainwater or trempers, no difference there)? I keep mine at the same temps through out the entire year and many people do the same with no negative effect on the geckos, albinos or not. To respond to another post I like to say that I did buy geckos from Ron that were incubated with his method and I still got nice babies from them with the normal incubation, maybe not as nice as his, but definitely not brown and I am very happy with the outcome.
My final thought (you mast been saying by now, thank good, lol) is that it seems to me that some people cannot believe how nice some of this geckos look and cannot believe that is just selective breeding, well buy your own (preferably from me, lol) and do your experiment and you will find out that is just like breeding 2 very nice SHT, some babies will hatch better looking and some will look like <font color=red>[bleep]</font>, as simple as that.
Please feal free to email me for more questions in the matter, I am an open book and I will be very happy to answer any questions or just reply to this post.
Regards to all, Alberto

Alberto-

Thank you so much for posting! It is so imperative that things like this are discussed, and I hope that this forum will become a place where we all feel comfortable speaking our mind and talking about these types of issues with open minds.

I have thought before that perhaps burying the eggs would help reduce fatalities. I'm not going to try that method again this year though. It will be tempting to use it on my Hybino Bell project but I really want to hatch out all the eggs and I also want them to be the sex I incubate them for! So I will incubate them the way I always have. I don't see a big difference in color between male and female Bells either, so it may not affect them at all.

I have a pair of really nice tangerine albinos that were produced by you Alberto (I got the from Ruben). Here's the pics of them:





I am going to incubate female eggs from this pair at 80-82, it will be interesting to see if the female offspring are doo doo brown or not. I have a funny feeling they probably will be, but hopefully not! The main reason i got the pair was because I wanted to find out for myself if tangerine albinos like those can produce offspring just as nice when incubated at "normal" female incubation temps. Inquiring minds wanted to know!

. . . by the way - thanks for the great explanation.

I am curious on how you incubate your eggs. You said you bury them in the perilite 2 inches. If it is possible - and if you have the time - could you post what that looks like. do you cover them, or just tunnel them down 2 inches? I'm very interested.

I guess it should be alright to bury them - heck, my leos scratch EVERY bit of peat moss over the egss - until it looks like a ski slope.

Alberto, thanks again for the great information. Your animals are really nice.

Kelli
I am so happy that you have that pair from my line. I am sure you will hatch some ugly ones but you will get some nice females from that pair as well, I am sure. Do not judge the babies at first, give them at list 3 months before you do because the geckos I am working with get better and better with time, just like SHT. One more thing I forgot to say in my post is that some breeders keep their albino from birth at 100 deg. on the hot side to show them much better looking then what they are. Do not ask me who does that but I know for sure. I think that is cheating because you are going way outside the temps for keeping leos and these breeders are risking the geckos health to get better color. People that buy those will be very disappointed with the outcome and will not buy from those breeders again. Thanks Kelli for reading my post, I like to know the outcome from those geckos, I am sure you will make a lot of people change their mind because you are much more experienced them me and you have been around for much longer and people will trust you judgment about this.
Alberto

Hi Monte
As I said I do not use that method anymore and I do not need to bury my eggs now. I did that only when I tried that method to make the exact replica of what Ron was doing because I felt that the change in temps could have harmed the eggs. But I can answer those questions with no PIC and if you feal that you need a visual to better understand I will make a replica of that for you. The eggs are buried abut 2" and covered with perlite. Remember that leos bury their eggs in nature and believe me, the babies will make it out no problem. The problem with that is that if you have some of the eggs dying under the perlite the ammonia levels will rise very fast if you do not remove them the chance of loosing more eggs becomes greater. If anybody will like to try incubating this way I suggest to check all the eggs every week, yes I know, that is a pain if you bury the eggs, but I know Ron does that and I did the same and that is why I do not bury them anymore, it is much easier to look at them from the top and you do not have to move the perlite around to check all the eggs under it. Ammonia is one of the biggest enemy of the eggs, and as a precaution I do change the perlite every time, ones all the eggs from the same container have hatched, no mater if the eggs are on top or buried.
I hope this answers your question.
Alberto