This is my first time breeding leopard geckos and they just hatched today. The first baby came out great and has no issues. The second one got out of the egg and rolled onto its back and seemed to be breathing really slow. I’m worried it’s dying but don’t know what I should do or if I should do anything.
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Thank you.
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from my pov i would just let it be in a blacked out area but i have no experience breeding leo i only keep them
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Okay thank you and I might try that.
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Can you add a picture of the gecko? What was the pairing and incubation temperature? Were there any spikes in temperature? What kind of incubator and thermostat were you using?
Edit: Also what and how often were you feeding the parents? Sorry for all the questions but it should help to narrow down what the problem is.
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The temperature stayed around 85 degrees and the humanity was at 90. I do not believe there were any temperature spikes. I used a ZooMed humidity and temperature gage.
I don’t know what the genetics are of the parents but I have a photo of the parents. The parents were feed every 3 days, and a mixture of bugs.
The baby looks deformed, if it is (it looks like it’s feet and back legs aren’t properly developed, you make the call) it needs to be culled. You can either do this by, ideally, smashing it’s head under something large and heavy (like a brick) or feed it to one of the parents. Freezing, suffocation, or hitting with a small object (like shooting) are not proper ways to cull.
The surviving gecko will need to be sold as pet-only because you don’t know the genetics of the parents and one looks to be albino. What kind of incubation media were you using? What kind of bugs were you feeding the parents?
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Also, I forgot to add this thread here, it has a good discussion about culling snakes, most of the concepts can be applied to geckos too.
Culling Snakes
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I was using hatchRite for the substrate. The parents were getting crickets and roaches along with some super worms here and there.
And thank you for you help I did noticed the feet and had read they can get deformed when they hatch.
As @erie-herps said, it is deformed or not properly formed. It will likely pass on its own, but culling it would be faster. This is a risk of breeding anything and is more common than you think. I wouldn’t feed it to the parents though, since leos are rather picky. That and it is likely too big.
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Thank you, if he doesn’t pass on his own in the next couple hours I will probably end up culling it.
Is there a main way they get deformed or something I did wrong with incubating them, that way I can avoid it next time.
I would cull it now. Its cruel to leave it in pain for hours on its own.
As far as why it happened it could be a number of things. It could be totally random, incubation problems (temperatures or humidity), parent supplement lack, parent stress, etc. Were you gut loading or dusting the feeders? Can you add a picture of the enclosures that the adults are in?
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It did end up dying about an half and hour ago when I went to cull it. The parents were getting guy loaded bugs dusted with calcium as well. I did end up selling the pair I bred for these eggs so I no longer have those geckos.
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