inbreeding?
For people producing for several years, have you seen an increase in deformities from year to year while using the same supplementation regimen? Everything else (husbandry techniques, diet, etc.) has to be constant to get useful information here.
I have a hunch this may play in to this problem more than we know or are willing to admit. I have found that many breeders are reluctant to discuss their failures, whether it is fertility/hatch rates, percentages of deformities, or 'failure to thrive syndrome' in their breeder geckos. Many of us have worked very hard for years to establish our reputations, and the reptile community can be very cruel. I know it's not necessarily something I want to share with the world, but we could learn so much from each other by discussing these things!
A few years ago I switched from my supplementation regimen of RepCal Calcium w/VitD and Herptivite to Miner-All "O" and noticed a significant difference in fertility rates and egg shell quality. When I went back to my original supplements, this problem all but disappeared. Last year, I switched to the Sandfire Leopard Gecko Dust ICB, and had ZERO fertile eggs for almost 2 months until I switched back again! If I recall, there were several other breeders that experienced this very thing with the same product, but the problem was not
proven to be associated.
This year, I have approximately 30% new (1st time) breeding stock, which can account for the beginning of my breeding season to get off to a slow start due to infertile eggs. Also, we took a trip to Mexico in February and the young fellow that took care of the geckos in my absence added water to the incubating egg medium
daily and drowned about 10 clutches. Then, we had a severe power failure which I described in a previous post on this thread, which accounted for approximately a dozen more egg failures. I believe it was due to the incubation temperatures because these failures could not be associated with any particular breeder or breeding group, and seemed only to affect the eggs/embryos that were at a particular point in their development during the power failure.
I am not trying to be judgemental, but I do NOT practice inbreeding amongst my leos for the very reason that I fear this practice is becoming detrimental to the genetic strength of the species. I do not believe for one minute that RT has line-bred for nearly 20 years without out-crossing and hasn't experienced problems associated with inbreeding! Granted, I will never be one of the breeders out there that can claim the honor of developing any 'new' leopard gecko morphs, but I am to the point where I am more inclined to concentrate on the robustness of the offspring I my geckos produce. Perhaps I am just being paranoid, but I think genetic problems are more widespread than we might be aware of.
Hopefully you got some more luck with the other eggs...