[tanala]

I'd like to hear your opinions on incubation conditions that you give to your eggs. Had little to no success last year with brevis and v. bogerti by incubating them in Perlite, 0,8:1 (Water:Substrate by weight), with temps between 26-28° C.

Do you
-use other substrates?
-provide another water:substrate ratio?
-incubate at varying temperatures?
-provide no, few or many air holes for ventilation?

Would be very nice to hear some opinions, and your success rate

[acpart]

I can't give success rates yet, but hope to have success soon. I have variegatus bogerti eggs incubating with my leopard gecko eggs and I am using perlite, .8:1, sealed container with no air holes, about 81F temperature. My first 2 eggs are at the 5 week mark and still look good. Last late summer I had no success but I also had a very young male. So far there are 3 eggs that have failed, but they didn't look very good when I put them in the incubator. I hope to be updating with good news around the first of April.

Aliza

[alecfeldman]

I've been breeding these for over 20 years. Here is what you do:

1:1 vermiculite to water BY WEIGHT. So not wet, but damp. Deli cup... minimum 1" depth. Indent some egg holes in the substrate.. so the egg sticks half way out of the vermiculite laying on its side. Do not cover the eggs.

You can very easily incubate for sex.
At 78 degrees F... 65 days - all females
At 82 degrees F... 65 days - all males
At 80 degrees F....65 days - both sexes
At 84 - 88 degrees you generally get all females with shorter incubation times.

I have close to 100% hatch rate with fertile eggs.

[acpart]

It sounds from your post that the humidity needs to be lower than for leopard geckos, for example if the containers are uncovered. I do get some temperature fluctuation of about 2 degrees in my hobovator and it sounds as if the temp sex determination is pretty narrow. Currently I have coleonyx eggs incubating in closed containers with perlite with my leopard gecko eggs and after 37 days they look pretty good. I'll let you know what "develops". One question: at what age can you sex these tiny geckos?

Aliza

[tanala]

thanks a lot so far!!
So you had bad results with eggs fully covered? How do you ventilate? by regular opening, or by some ventilation holes? Is the vermiculite coarse/rough or fine?

regards

[alecfeldman]

Regular tubs you would receive your animals in. They have the small holes punched on the sides.. that's it. No more holes than that. Cover with the plastic lid and you are all set to go. I prefer coarse vermiculite. It seems to hold the water for the entire incubation period.

As far as sexing the animals. It is very easy. Males have spurs on both sides of the hemipenal bulge. They are visible when looking down on the top of the animal. You can see the spurs as early as 2-3 months old. They are not really all that small... An adult variegatus (Borrego) is about 4" and fairly robust.

[Zilla]

Can the above information of temps be applied to other coleonyx species? I might be getting a couple of brevis soon and they might be gravid when i get them i just want to make sure that things go right if I do get them. I use Hatch Rite as medium for eggs.

[alecfeldman]

You can incubate brevis eggs, the exact same way. Not sure about the medium you are using. I have never personally used it before.