High incubation temperature affecting growth rate

[Izzy's Mom]

I just wanted to share an interesting experience I had as a newbie to breeding. Last May/June, I was incubating a clutch of eggs and I forgot to monitor the temperature as I had them inside of another heated tank for warmth. I noticed after about a month that the temperature was near 80 degrees, so I removed the eggs and continued incubating at room temperature (low 70's).

After only 45 days, the first egg hatched! Unfortunately, the hatchling choked to death on vermiculite and died 3 days later, the 2nd egg hatched and the baby was fine. He weighed about 1.8 grams, just like most of my other hatchlings.

The difference only became apparent over the next several months. I noticed that all my other hatchlings, even ones 3-4 months younger than this one were starting to catch up to him in size, and even surpassed him. His growth rate seemed to be severely inhibited, even when being fed the same diet as the other hatchlings.

Now, he is over 1 year old and all the other babies have outgrown him. He was only about 15 grams at 1 year of age, while others I have raised were double that size at that age! His sexual maturity didn't seem to be too far delayed - I was able to discern preanal pores around 4-5 months of age and a bulge was evident by 9 months. He is eating and acting normally, he is just VERY small for his age.

I just wanted to see if anyone else had experienced this and whether or not it was due to an accelerated incubation from temperatures being too high.

 

[EchotheGecko]

I just wanted to share an interesting experience I had as a newbie to breeding. Last May/June, I was incubating a clutch of eggs and I forgot to monitor the temperature as I had them inside of another heated tank for warmth. I noticed after about a month that the temperature was near 80 degrees, so I removed the eggs and continued incubating at room temperature (low 70's).

After only 45 days, the first egg hatched! Unfortunately, the hatchling choked to death on vermiculite and died 3 days later, the 2nd egg hatched and the baby was fine. He weighed about 1.8 grams, just like most of my other hatchlings.

The difference only became apparent over the next several months. I noticed that all my other hatchlings, even ones 3-4 months younger than this one were starting to catch up to him in size, and even surpassed him. His growth rate seemed to be severely inhibited, even when being fed the same diet as the other hatchlings.

Now, he is over 1 year old and all the other babies have outgrown him. He was only about 15 grams at 1 year of age, while others I have raised were double that size at that age! His sexual maturity didn't seem to be too far delayed - I was able to discern preanal pores around 4-5 months of age and a bulge was evident by 9 months. He is eating and acting normally, he is just VERY small for his age.

I just wanted to see if anyone else had experienced this and whether or not it was due to an accelerated incubation from temperatures being too high.

Ive not bred myself as i only have juvis right now, but ive been reading that this seems to be a common trend. Those incubated at a higher temp will hatch quicker and be perfectly healthy, but those inc'd at a cooler temp, say room temp, take longer but appear to turn out stronger and much faster growing babies. Dont think theres a great deal of hard evidence to support this theory over the life of a gecko just yet. So give it till they are all 2 and the smaller one may catch up in size?

 

[mikew1234]

The warmer the incubation temps, the less healthy the babies are. They will grow slower, and just tend to not be as hardy as others incubated at lower temps. My eggs used to take up to 100 days to hatch incubating at 68 degrees.

 

[crestokay]

Although this is said to be true, i feel this is not always the case. i have had geckos hatch at around 90 days and they hatched out smaller and have grown slower than geckos that hatch 60 days.

 

[Spyral]

There are a lot of variables. I do note that babies incubated warmer usually hatch out smaller, and being smaller keeps them that way until they hit the "teen" growth spurt at around 10-12 grams.

However, most of my babies all grow fairly slow if they don't eat bugs. Humidity and temps also can influence the growth. There's always variation in growth even with the same environment.

I still recommend lower temps for incubation for general health and size at hatching.