3!?!?

[beanersmysav]

I just recently seperated all of my leopard geckos as I want to give them a break from eachother and all the breeding thats been happening. This morning I looked in my big females cage who lays me more eggs than my other female and more often. She's been laying 2 every 2 to 3 weeks and when candled they look to be fertile.

Well this morning there were 3 eggs in her humid hide! All very good looking and quite robust! Anyone else here seen their female lay 3 eggs before? I read nothing of it in the Leopard Gecko Manual so this is a bit of a shock to me. The manual said 1 or 2 eggs. Is this some sort of record or am I just not reading in the right places?

[Bartman]

Its very rare but its happened before. Consider yourself one of the few :D

[beanersmysav]

One of the few isn't bad I guess :) nothin I should worry about though? I found another forum that said its an ovary problem but I somehow doubt it.

[Manitoban Herps]

it's not a problem, your just lucky!

[DragnDrop]

If you breed leos long enough, you're bound to see the odd 3-egg clutch. I've had it happen twice that I can remember, though I believe it might even be 4 times. The 3rd egg is usually infertile, or if fertile, it's never hatched. Generally it doesn't get the proper run through the calcifiying stage so the shell isn't good, though sometimes it can be a yolk problem too.
There's no reason to think there's a problem with the female, it's no different than human multiple births.

[beanersmysav]

Yeah the 3rd egg doesnt look as good as the first two but I'm going to give it a week in the incubator see if it ripens up or not. This is only my 4th clutch so I guess I experienced that quickly

[TheWulf]

Well look on the bright side... if it doesn't hatch, you got an omelette ;)

[beanersmysav]

ha not too much of one :-p

[peterm15]

how do you know if its the third egg... it might have been the first... lol.. j/k... your very lucky

[Topaz]

this is a bit off topic, but Molly's first clutch had one good sized egg that looked normal, and one egg half the size that was a bit mishaped, both infertile... but her next two clutches are great and hatched!
Dragondrop, is this sorta of what happens to the third egg where the proccess involved to develope the eggs doesn't work properly? I can understand that for a first clutch and a third egg.

Anyone know the largest clutch a leo ever did? lol, any 4 egg clutches out there? Doubt it is healthy but interesting to know.

[DragnDrop]

First year breeders are still learning the ropes of egg production. Most get it right by the second clutch or maybe 3rd, but you can expect anything the first year. Some only lay one egg the whole season, or even have a perfect first year with all fertile eggs that hatch into bouncing screaming leo babies. Females who are bred when they reach a decent weight (considered 45 grams) might still be immature as far as their reproductive organs go, so they have a good chance of problem clutches and a shorter than average season. I found that not breeding a female until she's at least 18, preferably 20+ months old makes a difference with the number of good clutches. I now hold back any females until they're over 20 months, and get more viable eggs than from yearling females. I have a few SHTB girls that I bought from The Urban Gecko in the spring of 2003, already about 4-5 months old. This year will be their first breeding season because I wanted to make sure they're good and ready to handle the stresses of breeding. Even though they were over a year old last summer, and all 55-65 grams, I let them sit back and mature another year.

A common problem with first season breeders is the 'half full' or 'half sized' egg, as well as infertile eggs for several clutches. Even though egg production is almost like a production line conveyor belt, there are a lot of steps along the way that can go wrong. Over the first few months of breeding the bugs are worked out, a tweak here and there and by the second year it's (almost) all routine.

I don't know if anyone tracked the largest leo clutch, but I would it's 4 eggs. If the female retained a clutch of 2 eggs, and went on to produce the next clutch, she might easily have laid them all at the same time. However, I'm willing to bet she probably had to have the eggs surgically removed. Having more than 4 eggs inside would be almost impossibly difficult for the mother, I can't even imagine how she'd survive without medical attention.

[beanersmysav]

Well this is my females first season the one who layed the three eggs is (now after laying them) 46 grams, before I started breeding her she was 50 , when she has the eggs she puts on a significant amount. She's had one infertile egg in her first clutch the rest have all been fertile. Before and after breeding she readily accepts pinkies dipped in D3 and she has a bowl of D3 at all times.

The male was seperated from them so she'll stop laying I guess whenever she's done.

The other female however was probably bred a bit too early. She was the same weight but for some reason she just can't get it right. Alot of infertile eggs from her. Needless to say she was seperated sooner and wont be bred again until next year

[TLH_Wär§cöötmän]

Thats cool, 3 eggs..but if my 1 gecko had 3 eggs in her...oh boy I'd be afraid to touch her cuz she'd be monsterous. She just laid 2 eggs Jan 2 and she was easily 2 inches wide...3 eggs woulda killed her I bet LOL!!