important crested gecko - long incubation question

I have read every care sheet available and have spoken to countless breeders on the phone, through, e-mail, and at expos.

My gecko eggs are driving me nuts! today is day 82 for two of my eggs. My other sets of eggs have a while before I can be concerned about them. I had no problem hatching leopard geckos using a home made incubator. I have had a few failed attempts with my geckos and they are driving me crazy because each time i've been doing what others have suggested and done themselves. I tried room temp, I tried my home made incubator, and now I have an actual incubator that I got from tractor supply. The hatchlings develop fine and then don't hatch. They take a very very long time to incubate and I don't know why they are not hatching. I had 2 eggs that I kept at 70 degrees for over 140 days and they never hatched nor did they show any signs of molding until all of a sudden the moisture level jumped drastically and they burst. This happened more than once each with a very long incubation period.

With the two eggs that are at day 82, I have them in a little giant incubator set at 78-80 degrees. They seem to be developing alright but they should have hatched 20 days ago at those temps. They are not showing any signs of molding or death. The hatchlings are too big to candle the eggs now. The eggs are nice and white and full and round. I'm hoping that maybe they're just taking their time but have others had late hatchlings at these temps? Every care sheet and everyone I've spoken to have said that at 78-80 degrees they should hatch about 60-65 days.

Like I said, I've hatched leopards before with a home made incubator with no problems. I know how to mix the substrate just fine and if it weren't than the eggs wouldn't make it to term anyway and would have died sooner.

Any ideas what might be happening?

PLEASE LET ME KNOW! I'm getting so disheartened and frustrated.

I've had a little bit of a similar experience and have talked to someone else who had the same thing happen. Just to start: crested eggs can go from 60-100+ days and hatch just fine.

I'm wrapping up my first season of crested breeding and I had 3 clutchs that were incubated at 75-80*F that went up to 70+ days- taking way longer than eggs I had incubating at the same temps.

It concerned me as they candled full so I decided to cut assuming they were dead in the eggs. 3 of the eggs had live healthy babies that thrived- I have all three of them still. It's like they were ready to hatch but just weren't doing it

The other 2 were actually dead in the eggs, fully developed- something did seem more "off" with those two eggs. I'm in no way encouraging that you cut (it is very tedious and irreversible), I honestly thought they had died in the eggs. I'm just telling you my experience.

If your females were virgins it may be that (it was my girl's first seasons). First year girls will typically have lower hatch rates/fertility rates. By the 2nd and 3rd season production is much more reliable/successful.

Brittany,

Thanks for the comforting words. I'm hoping that they will still hatch. It still seems strange at 78-80 degrees that the hatchlings haven't emerged yet at now 83 days. I don't want to risk cutting eggs because I don't know how and have heard too many people say not to.

I'll just let them be and hope. like I said, they don't seem to be showing any signs of death, mold, rot or anything so I can only assume they are alive.

I guess we'll see. I'm going to try to post photos.

That isn't terribly late. Although, I am concerned simply based off the pattern of non-hatching you've had. I've had one hatch out at those temps at 71 days, but every clutch won't be the same.

Now there are a lot of people I've heard of that like to incubate lower, as a slower incubation often produces larger hatchlings and it is believed that it lowers the risk of developemental issues. For me I can't incubate lower, my house is usually 77-80*F. But it may be something to consider if you have the ability to do it.

Those eggs look like they have been stained by coco fiber (which doesn't affect the eggs). They appear sort of rough on the outside? (Maybe calcium deficiency prob?) Other than that they look just like a pair of eggs I should have hatching any time now.

All I can say is to keep trying. Breeding animal is no perfect science and not everything works out as planned. I had 3 failure to thrive hatchlings- one lasted a week and seemed just fine until I found it dead one morning. The other 2 lasted for 3+ months and ate enough to live but never grew and had shed issues. I know it how it feels, it broke my heart to lose those beautiful babies

I now have 7 thriving babies, so who knows what is happening internally to those that don't hatch or thrive

I wish you the best of luck in getting hatchlings!

There is nothing wrong with how long they are incubating for, I have had friends have eggs hatch from 110-120 days, sometimes the little ones just need a bit longer and there is nothing wrong with that. In the previous years 70-80 days is most average for me and I incubate at 72/74 degrees. I dont use any incubators, I incubate on a shelf. There are ways to incubate at cooler temps which if youre incubating at 80 degrees or above, I highly recommend finding ways to reduce the temps if you are finding your eggs are hatching at 60 days or less on a regular basis. But yes at higher temps they tend to hatch out smaller and less hardy, not fully formed, or deformities.

How can you incubate cooler? Well you can always buy an incubator that can both heat and cool, you can find them online, you can use wine coolers, and even take non working mini fridges and take a computer fan building it inside of it to circulate the air inside helping to keep it a little bit cooler. So there are ways to do it if you are finding you cant incubate cooler.

Whn ws the last time you candled the eggs? Believe it or not even bad eggs can grow from water absorption and take a long time before they actually look bad, although your eggs do look good.