OMG my crested Gecko just gave birth!

[StephenP]

I have 2 females and 1 male crested housed together, they are all about 14 Months old. Today I just noticed some unusual movement in their tank and to my complete and utter surprise it was a new born baby Crestie! I could not believe it! I still cant believe it!! I ran around my study like gibbering idiot, woke up my girlfriend (it was 2:30am!) and generally flapped around not knowing what to-do!

I had noticed the geckos mating about a month ago, I kept a reasonable close eye on the females but I had no idea that they were gravid! I feel really bad, please don’t flame me... I feel totally unprepared now and need some good advice.

I have separated the newborn into a separate small container. I don’t have any small crickets so I am off to the pet store today to get some.. I have 5 (well 6 now!) cresties and 4 of them I had from a young age (3 weeks old) so I feel reasonable confident about caring for the newborns (just feed them smaller dusted crickets and keep their mini-environment pretty much the same for adults.)

The problem is that there are more eggs and I am not sure what to-do with them. They have been laid in the soil of two of the plants that I have in the tank, a few eggs seem to be shriveled, but there are at least three that are round and seem undamaged. Should I separate them and incubate them? Should I leave them be?

I need some good advice from experienced crestie breeders, I love cresties and will keep all the babies as pets, but I am new and obviously unprepared for this.

Steve

 

[Mark and Aimee]

You'd be best off removing the eggs from the cage as soon as you find them. You run a extremely high chance of turning babies into feeders for the adults if you don't see them right away.

Just use a large spoon, and scoop out the eggs, dirt, and all. Be sure to NOT turn the eggs at all, and transfer them to a deli cup. You can even put the deli cup right back in the cage, as soon as you put a lid on the cup.

Congrats, and good luck!

 

[Monte]

Cool story . . .

. . . isn't it amazing how they can lay eggs, and you can't even tell they disturbed the soil.

I have been doing some observation of gravid cresteds. When i see laying activity, I go into the lay box and get the substrate very smooth and level. Most of the time - you can hardly tell that they've laid eggs. They are very neat and tidy.

Not like my leos - I have one that would lay eggs, then mound every scrape of substrate over the eggs.

 

[robin d.]

very cool,
you can go to wal mart and get eithrer a small or medium sized container... maybe 2-3 inches deep at most, go to the garden sections get either some perlite or vermiculote... if perlite add water let sit and then squeeze out as much as you can and fill the container uo about half way...... put some air holes in the container side above where the perlite or vermiculite will be two or three spaced about an inch apart horizontal. fot the perliote way go to http://www.albeysreptiles.com/incubate-eggs.htm .... set them on a shelt in a room that stays a prety constant temp around 78 +/- and all shall be good

 

[StephenP]

Thanks for all the great advice!

I have seperated the eggs into small plastic container with potting soil (I hope this is Ok, I didnt have ready access to any rock based material like perlite) and sprayed a little water to keep the eggs moist.

I may have inadvertantly rotated a few of them... I really hope that I have not harmed any potential hatchlings (I was being very carefull but a few eggs were buried quite deep in the soil). 2 of the eggs are a gonna (they have large depressions in them) another 2 are a strange dark brown color (im not sure what this means) and another 3 are perfectly formed and pure white... these are my hopefulls...

As one has already hached should I expect (assuming that they are still alive) them all to hatch soon? what is normal for cluches of crestie eggs? do they usually hatch at the same tome or over a longer period?

I feel like such an ass for missing all of the signs... I shall not make the same mistake again that is for sure..

Ill keep you all posted as to how things progress

Steve

 

[riverjop]

Stephen, Next time try to make a small mark on the top of the egg with a pen/marker so that you can re-position them in the correct manner, before moving them.
Good luck! I see more cages in your future! LOL

 

[StephenP]

Update

Ok so the bad news is that none of my other eggs have hatched yet.. I am assuming that they have all died

Here is a Pic of the Eggs

The good news is that I have one Wicked little baby crestie:

Also I have just discovered that my other female has laid a clutch of eggs! YAY!

Now I want todo this right so I am not going to disturb the eggs from the small plant that they have been laid in.

I know the date that they were laid +/-1 day so I figured that as the normal incubation time is around 50 days I will leave the plant in the Cresties tank until day 40 and then remove the plant pot to a separate spare 10 gallon tank that I have then in preparation for hatching..

Is this a good Idea??

I have had many suggestions previously of relocating eggs into perlite or vermiculite rather than potting soil.. however I’m pretty sure that my last clutch failed due to them being disturbed so much....

Some good advice is needed once again...

I have plenty of advance warning this time so I have no excuses for screwing this up!

Here is a bunch more pictures of the new baby

 

[riverjop]

sounds like a plan!!!!