Breeder Advice – Caution when introducing different males to the same female

I wanted to give a little warning to fellow leopard gecko breeders when introducing different males to the same female.  This week we had a female that was clearly ovulating, so I introduced her to a male that I had initially planned the project for.  The male rubbed all over the female, but he would not start the mating ritual.  No tail rattling, no love bites, just a lot of tail & body rubbing.  After about 10 minutes, nothing was happening so I separated the two, and placed them back into their enclosures.

The next day, I worked up a new project plan for this same female.  I introduced a different male to this female, because the first male showed no interest.  After putting them together in a neutral bin, the female acted normal, but the male looked like he was uneasy.  He paced back and forth a bit, kept looking at the female but would not approach the female.  Then when the female walked near the male, the male snapped at the female and bit her on the tail. Continue reading “Breeder Advice – Caution when introducing different males to the same female”

Hatchling Happenings – Saving a life

A week ago, we posted about a super giant raptor male hatching.  We showed you a picture of an egg that looked like it was ready to pop next to the raptor hatchling.  The good news is the egg did break open, a healthy bandit hatchling did come out of the egg.  Here’s a picture of the hatchling that came out:

bandit hatchling

But what’s strange is that one egg down below, with what it would appear a gecko’s nose sticking out of it.  When I saw it, I thought the gecko was in the process of breaking out of the egg.  So I put the cup back inside the incubator, and left it for a few more hours.

When I came back to check on the egg again, there was no progress, the egg looked exactly the same as before.  That’s when I thought I had a dead hatchling, one that died before making out of the egg.  So I took the egg out for a closer look. Continue reading “Hatchling Happenings – Saving a life”

Hatchling Happenings – Better late than never

In a typical breeding season, July is usually when your females stop ovulating and start eating again.  This is also roughly the time when most breeders are listing their hatchlings and juveniles that are ready to be shipped.  For us here at OnlineGeckos.com, this isn’t a typical breeding season for us.  Our females for some reason decided to breed late this year, and many of them are still laying eggs.

While our bold Bandit breeding group had a good jump start, majority of our other breeding projects have started late this season.  We currently have about 30 eggs in the incubator, many of which would take another 30 days before they hatch.  But, better late than never.  Two weeks ago we posted a picture of a beautiful super giant raptor female that hatched.  Today we had another super giant raptor hatch, this time a male.  Take a look at this beautiful gecko.

super giant raptor hatchling

Continue reading “Hatchling Happenings – Better late than never”

Leopard Gecko Egg Candling – How to check for a fertile egg

leopard gecko egg candling

How can you tell if the eggs you are incubating are fertile or not?

There’s a method called “leopard gecko egg candling”.  It’s simply to shine a light on the egg to see if the egg gives off a pink/red color or not.  A fertile egg will usually give off a pink, reddish look on the inside.  It’s an indication that there’s something growing inside.  Here’s an example from one of our eggs, this egg has been incubating for 30 days now.

This particular egg is being incubated for females at 81(F) degrees, so it has another 30 days to go yet.  But you can see very distinctively the pink/reddish coloration on the inside. Continue reading “Leopard Gecko Egg Candling – How to check for a fertile egg”

Hatchling Happenings

This past week, we’ve had a beautiful super giant raptor hatch.  She’s a temperature sexed female, hatched out of a very large egg.  The eggs were laid by a first time raptor breeder.  The male we are using for this project is a 160g super giant mack snow raptor, he’s a monster!  We are very excited about this project.  This is just a sneak peek, look for us to make more updates in the future.

Here’s the gecko, just hatched, with eyes still closed

super giant raptor hatchling

Continue reading “Hatchling Happenings”

Importance of incubators

For a leopard gecko breeder, there are a few things that affect your season’s success. One of which is finding good breeder geckos, something we covered in a previous Gecko Breeder Chronicle article. The other however, is having good incubators. As a breeder, your eggs are everything. Without the eggs hatching, you have no season, and you can’t advance your projects.

Importance of Incubators – Unexpected Failures

During our first year of breeding, we had an incubator that died overnight.  There were 12 eggs in that incubator, and all 12 turned out bad. It was not surprising to us that the eggs went bad after the incident, we expected it. Although it was disheartening, because the eggs looked firm and fertile before.  They were from several projects we were working on that year, many of which included our Super Giant and Radar projects. That incubator was incubating for males, so we had a season with no male holdbacks to further our projects. Continue reading “Importance of incubators”