[TheRed]

Hey guys,
About a month ago I picked up my first two mourning geckos. One of them was already gravid when I got them, and last week I noticed she was a lot skinnier. Sure enough, there was no more white on her stomach, but I searched everywhere in their tub and couldn't find the eggs. I'm thinking maybe they were infertile and eaten or they could just be very well hidden.
Yesterday the other gecko spent most the day in a crevice in the cork bark, and I found these last night!

They're my first mourning eggs as well as reptile eggs ever. Hopefully they'll make it and I'll have a couple little mournings running around in a few months.
Laying must take a lot out of the geckos. Usually I only see a few small spots of CGD missing, but last night the lid was licked clean, and I saw the gecko that laid the eggs eat two of the crickets I put in.
Eric

[Palor]

GRATZ, hope your ready for very tiny and cute babies

[TheRed]

Thanks! My only concern is what to feed the little ones. I'm currently looking into where to get fruit flies around here.

[Palor]

I feed my little ones, Fruit Fly, Crested Gecko Diet, small Phoenix worms, pinhead cricket and baby roaches. You can also feed them spring tails.

[Elizabeth Freer]

Congratulations, Eric!

Their is some chance the eggs could be infertile, but if so you should have hatchlings within the next 4 months! After about 60 days the eggs will hatch. The young ones are only 1" 3/8" in length.

When I feed fruitflies I cover the tank with a lightweight cloth under the lid. That helps to keep the flies in the tank. (Not all the time are the flies attracted to a piece of fruit.)

Clark's (Frugivorous) Gecko Diet is good! All mourning geckos like Gerber's banana baby food. I mix in a bit of Gerber's chicken baby food for protein. Lately I've been adding several drops of Calcium Glubionate to the mixture.

[MauricesExoticPets]

When looking at going the baby food route, look for fruit versions that state some sort of calcium content.

Mixing in a small portion of fruit yogert has not done any harm in my experience.

Spring tails are good for hatchlings, but require a soil substrate of some sort to be worth your effort.

You'll want to start some D. melanogaster cultures, the adults will eat them as well so there is no worries about having too many, they are one of my main feeders for these gals.

They go for newly born isopods pretty quick, maybe at the three week mark to one month old.

You can directly mist the eggs, while not required if the humidity is high enough, it also causes no harm to the eggs so long as the water does not saturate them.

I'm not real fond of feeding them the cgd as is, but I'll mix it with the afore mentioned baby foods. I suppose this would not be adviseable if I didn't also feed insects.

All in all I see a bit over 80% of my eggs hatch, and have not lost hatchlings since I started with these.

Maurice Pudlo

[TheRed]

Thanks for all the replies and help. It's nice having a place to come to with experts who help out.
I'll head to the store tomorrow for some baby food. I found a pet shop with fruit flies today so I'll go check those out as well.
Do you guys leave your babies in with the adults or remove them after birth? I remember reading that if the adults are fed enough the babies should be fine but I'm curious to see what others do.
Thanks,
Eric

[MauricesExoticPets]

I prefer to move the adults rather than the hatchlings when I do move any adults out of an enclosure where eggs will be incubated insitu.

I really only do this with mourning geckos when someone requests lay and hatch dates. In general with enough food and lots of hides they do fine. There are exceptions where hatchlings and a particular adult do not get along, the adult always wins. A hungry adult will eat a hatchling if no other food is available and the hatchling has no place to escape to.

Maurice Pudlo

[crestedguy]

I just got my first adult mournings too! I already have one baby but I went to an expo yesterday and black ink reptiles was getting rid of a colony of five, with the inclosure for only $60! I was waiting for the one I already got to mature, but I saw these and had only forty dollars that I was planning on spending (the rest is savings) so I ran to my mom (I am only twelve years old, otherwise this would all sound very weird) and asked her if she would lend me the other twenty dollars. good thing is, she said yes! So I hurried back to the table and bought them. Then as I was walking out, I saw that there were two clutches of eggs in there! They are now in a small sterilite tube that has eco earth, over that, moss, and a fake branch. I cannot wait to see the babys!