Mourning gecko eggs!

[catfishrod69]

One of my mourning geckos has been gravid for a month or so, and today she popped out a couple eggs. These are my first eggs from my girls, so hopefully they hatch well. Enjoy!

 

[Introvertebrate]

Cool. Best of luck with them.

 

[TLover007]

Keep us updated... a pic of the mother would be nice... congrats

 

[catfishrod69]

Thanks! Ill try and get some female pics this weekend.

 

[catfishrod69]

Here is the mom



And here is her sister

 

[RzezniksRunAway]

That's crazy how different yours look from mine. Mine are a darker, way more mottled pattern. I know they can shift colors, but even at their palest they don't compare to your girls. The eggs take FOREVER to hatch. I had some go well over 130 days last year, infuriating to wait for. I'm waiting for 2 eggs right now that I discovered 1-20-14, but they're in-tank, glued to the upper rim of an exoterra. If you didn't get the girls as little babies, be prepared for the tiniest geckos ever. I have mine in a 4x4x8 acrylic box with screen on two holes, front and top. I feared smashing them in the door of the exoterra I originally put them in because they were so freaking small.

 

[catfishrod69]

Im not sure, that is weird. Mine do get darker, but in the pics is the lightest. Sometimes they are all dark, and sometimes they are all light lol. Yeah i know the wait wont be fun, but hopefully both eggs make it. Ive just got both girls in a 32 ounce deli cup. I removed the eggs and put them in a seperate cup, because they will eat the eggs and babies. I want to move them into something a little bigger and nicer, but havent made up my mind yet. I got mine when they were half grown, so im sure ill be surprised at how small the babies are!

That's crazy how different yours look from mine. Mine are a darker, way more mottled pattern. I know they can shift colors, but even at their palest they don't compare to your girls. The eggs take FOREVER to hatch. I had some go well over 130 days last year, infuriating to wait for. I'm waiting for 2 eggs right now that I discovered 1-20-14, but they're in-tank, glued to the upper rim of an exoterra. If you didn't get the girls as little babies, be prepared for the tiniest geckos ever. I have mine in a 4x4x8 acrylic box with screen on two holes, front and top. I feared smashing them in the door of the exoterra I originally put them in because they were so freaking small.

 

[RzezniksRunAway]

I started with 3 half-growns, and lost 1 within 2 weeks to a door accident (it crawled into the latch-space of a zoo-med tank and was decapitated. Ugh.) The other female went on a great adventure (jumped out of the cage, chased by cats, caught in a fish net) and didn't survive the stress. So, I ended up with one adult. I have her in a planted 12x12x18 exo-terra.



The babies, my normal human sized hand is on the outside of the glass.




From my understanding, there are different clone lines. I found some information from 2009 from Dr. Petren on the Pangea boards about them. I can't definitively say mine are a certain line, the photo on page 2 of the thread doesn't make me certain of anything. I'm not even sure those are the only clone lines known, since that was from 5 years ago.

http://www.pangeareptile.com/forums/showthread.php?31531-Mourning-Geckos

I keep a calcium "lick" in the females cage. I just mixed calcium powder with some Pangea crested diet (3:1), added a drop of water, smooshed it into a tiny dish and let it dry. She licks at it, but when I put an entire dish of loose calcium in she was eating it really well, but making a terrible mess of it. I've gotten her to the point of accepting roach nymphs off tongs if I'm slow about it, but any sudden moves and she disappears.

 

[catfishrod69]

Very sorry you lost a couple .

I have thought about putting mine into a 12x12x18 exo, but was afraid they might be able to squeeze through the gaps in the glass. You havent had any problems with that, especially from the babies?

Yeah im not good at all at genetics, but could possibly match my girls up to one in the pics. But will have to wait until they are dark and get some shots of them.

I started off feeding nothing but dusted lateralis roaches. But a buddy on here said his eat crestie diet, so i started giving them that. I dont mix any calcium with it, because i was told that it already has it in there. Other than that i have fed them nothing but that for a while. What is up with the plump necks in that guys pictures? Mine dont have that.

 

[RzezniksRunAway]

I've been pulling the babies when they hatch, they don't get out, but they get into stupid places in the cage where they could potentially be squished. I put them into a modified acrylic box with no hinges until they're larger, so it's not an issue, but a deli cup would work as well. Mine get crested gecko diet (I use pangea) that's replaced every 2-3 days, and roaches, although I use crickets and dwarf white isopods for the little ones. Plump necks are calcium stores, they don't have to be that large, some of them seem to hoard it more than others. The adult that I have now, when her eggs hatch, I just leave the shells attached in the cage and she eats them. They don't need to be huge, but it's nice for the females to have some extra for egg production.

 

[catfishrod69]

Well that makes sense. Mine seem to be taking the crestie diet pretty well, so i kind of stuck with that. Easier for me to mix that up than dig for certain sized lateralis. But every once in a while ill toss some in. Ah calcium storage, never even thought of that.

 

[Tivia]

Wow, those mourning geckos are so super cute, Catfish! Like RzezniksRunAway said, I didn't realize they got so light. I hope your eggs hatch out, I can't wait to see the babies.

 

[catfishrod69]

Here is one of the females in dark phase.

 

[Tivia]

Beautiful!!

 

[catfishrod69]

One of the eggs hatched but i found the baby dead. The other has yet to hatch, and the other female dropped 1 egg.

 

[dementedlullaby]

Sucks the baby was dead. Wonder why. Oh my those must be some tiny babies! My leopard gecko girl dropped an egg but it's infertile for sure. I thought they had small eggs but wow.

Hope you have better luck with the future ones. They're really awesome looking little fellahs.

 

[Aquarimax]

Here are some things I learned from my first few mourning gecko hatches that may help:

Egg viability
First of all, just like many sources indicate, the eggs can take a long time to hatch. The first clutch (only one of which was viable) took 4 months and 19 days. The second clutch (which only had one egg in it) took 3 months and 27 days.

Numerous sources indicate that the an air bubble will form within a viable egg, that it is visible when a light source is held near the egg, and that it will enlarge during the course of incubation. This makes sense, but I was not prepared for the size of the air bubble in comparison to the egg. I remember looking at one of the eggs and thinking, "That air bubble is really large, so it doesn't leave a lot of room for anything else. I wonder if the embryo is no longer viable and it is drying out." A week or two later, the egg hatched into a perfectly healthy gecko.

I also learned that eggs can become discolored , and yet remain healthy. The first egg became considerably darker in the latter half of the incubation period, and rather unevenly colored. It didn't seem to cause any issues. Late in the development process, the second egg had a darker patch at the more rounded end. The hatchling emerged from the narrower end.

Finally, I learned that the eggs really can survive less than ideal conditions. The first egg was inadvertently knocked from its deposition site when I opened the lid one day, and to my horror, fell to the carpeted floor, a drop of about 3 feet. The infertile egg was cracked, but the other egg seemed undamaged. I carefully picked it up and created a makeshift incubator out of a plastic food saver container with a small ventilation hole and some paper towels. I misted the side of the container (never the egg itself) occasionally, 1-2 times per week. Needless to say, the gecko hatched perfectly healthy a couple of months later, so the fall didn't seem to cause any problems.



So far I have had 15 eggs laid. Of those, 5 have hatched, 2 were infertile, 5 were damaged before hatching, (four of those because they were laid in a rather unsuitable location) and 3 are soon to hatch, if all goes well.

 

[catfishrod69]

Yeah it does. The baby was probably an inch if that. Thanks!

Sucks the baby was dead. Wonder why. Oh my those must be some tiny babies! My leopard gecko girl dropped an egg but it's infertile for sure. I thought they had small eggs but wow.

Hope you have better luck with the future ones. They're really awesome looking little fellahs.

---------- Post added 08-21-2014 at 07:40 AM ----------

Thanks for everything! So far the second egg has not hatched yet. But the first one hatched a little over 3 months after laid. I wonder if it was just premature. A buddy has had several eggs laid, but either the babies dont hatch, or hatch and die. I keep my girls in a large deli cup, and just rehouse the females after the eggs are laid. Unless they are laid on the plastic plants, then i just remove the plants. I use coco fiber in the bottom of the cups, and just pour some water into the substrate. Im hoping that the 2 eggs i have left hatch well. I thought about setting the girls up into a nicer enclosure, but then would have to worry about eggs getting eaten if i couldnt cover them with a cup or remove what they were laid on.

Here are some things I learned from my first few mourning gecko hatches that may help:

Egg viability
First of all, just like many sources indicate, the eggs can take a long time to hatch. The first clutch (only one of which was viable) took 4 months and 19 days. The second clutch (which only had one egg in it) took 3 months and 27 days.

Numerous sources indicate that the an air bubble will form within a viable egg, that it is visible when a light source is held near the egg, and that it will enlarge during the course of incubation. This makes sense, but I was not prepared for the size of the air bubble in comparison to the egg. I remember looking at one of the eggs and thinking, "That air bubble is really large, so it doesn't leave a lot of room for anything else. I wonder if the embryo is no longer viable and it is drying out." A week or two later, the egg hatched into a perfectly healthy gecko.

I also learned that eggs can become discolored , and yet remain healthy. The first egg became considerably darker in the latter half of the incubation period, and rather unevenly colored. It didn't seem to cause any issues. Late in the development process, the second egg had a darker patch at the more rounded end. The hatchling emerged from the narrower end.

Finally, I learned that the eggs really can survive less than ideal conditions. The first egg was inadvertently knocked from its deposition site when I opened the lid one day, and to my horror, fell to the carpeted floor, a drop of about 3 feet. The infertile egg was cracked, but the other egg seemed undamaged. I carefully picked it up and created a makeshift incubator out of a plastic food saver container with a small ventilation hole and some paper towels. I misted the side of the container (never the egg itself) occasionally, 1-2 times per week. Needless to say, the gecko hatched perfectly healthy a couple of months later, so the fall didn't seem to cause any problems.
View attachment 129308
View attachment 129310

So far I have had 15 eggs laid. Of those, 5 have hatched, 2 were infertile, 5 were damaged before hatching, (four of those because they were laid in a rather unsuitable location) and 3 are soon to hatch, if all goes well.

 

[Tivia]

I'm sorry that the baby was dead. So sad.
I hope you have better luck with the second egg.

 

[catfishrod69]

The single egg hatched the other day! And the baby is doing very well.