Take Care of Lizard Eggs
Did you find unexpected eggs in your pet lizard's cage? Or you are new to the hobby and have decided to breed your pet lizards for the first time? The answer to this question "How to care for lizard eggs?" is different for every species of lizard. See below for the basics of each egg laying "type".
Contents
Steps
Getting an Incubator for Your Kind of Eggs
- Get the right incubator. The first thing you should do is research the lizard species who laid the eggs. Find out what incubation temperatures you need to incubate the eggs and how long you need to incubate them.
- Purchase an incubator and set it to the desired temperature.
- Hovabator incubators are inexpensive and work well for most species of lizard. You can find these at a store that sells farm supplies as these incubators are used for incubating bird eggs as well. If you do not live near a store you can buy them online. If there is no store near you and you can not wait to have an incubator shipped to you, you can make an incubator.
- Make an incubator. In an emergency, like unanticipated eggs, you can make your own incubator. You will need a {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} tank, a fish tank heater, a brick or two and plastic wrap.
- Place the bricks in your tank and fill it with water to just below the top of the bricks. You will place your eggs in a container and sit it on top off these bricks when you are ready to incubate.
- Put the fish tank heater in the water and set it to the temperature you want to incubate the eggs in.
- Seal the top with plastic wrap to hold in the heat and humidity.
- Decide on a container. You are ready to incubate, but what about a container? And what do you put in the container with the eggs?
- Depending on the size of your eggs you can use different sized plastic containers. Small eggs you can put in deli cups, medium sized eggs you can put in sandwich containers and large eggs in rubbermaid containers.
- Fill your container halfway with some kind of incubation medium. This can be damp moss, vermiculite, perlite or hatchrite. Each medium should not be wet but damp. After wetting the medium, the best way to judge correct dampness is by squeezing it hard so that there is no more water dripping off. It is now ready to be put in your container.
- Putting the eggs in the container, very carefully. You are ready to remove your lizard eggs from the enclosure and put them in the container but you need to be very very careful.
- 24 hours after an egg is laid, the embryo inside attaches itself the the wall of the egg and starts growing. If you jiggle or rotate the egg, the embryo will come unattached, drown and die.
- It is very important that when removing an egg, you keep it in the same position it was laid in when you are picking it up and putting it in your container.
- Before you pick up your egg make an indentation with your finger in the incubation medium where you want to put your egg. Put your egg in the indentation and take a sharpie or pencil and mark a dot on top of the egg. This will tell you what is right side up in case the egg accidentally gets shifted. You will be able to put it back into position and hope for the best.
- Place multiple eggs about a fingers width apart from each other. Tightly close your lid on the container and put it in the incubator. Write down somewhere the date of when the eggs were laid and calculate when they should hatch and mark it on your calendar.
Preparing for Babies
- Check on your eggs periodically. After a week or so you should check on your eggs and see if they are growing.
- Buy a small white LED light, take out your container, go in a dark room, open the lid and shine the light as close to the egg as you can but be careful not to press on the egg or move it. #*The inside of the egg will glow and you should see pink, red or maybe a few blood vessels inside. This means it is alive and growing. If it glows yellow, either the egg is infertile, dead or not enough time has passed to see growth yet.
- Close up the container and put it back in the incubator for another week or so and then check again. After a month you should see something if it is alive. Eggs that are infertile or dead will turn an off-white or yellowish color and eventually grow mold and/or cave in. Good eggs usually stay bright white and swell over time as they are growing.
- It is good to check on eggs every one to two weeks during the whole incubation process. Each time you check, you can see how they are developing and the eggs will get fresh air every time you open the container. Do not open the container anymore than this though, they could lose too much humidity if you do.
- Set up the cages for the hatchlings. While you wait for your eggs to hatch, set up an enclosure for hatchlings. Make sure you have everything you need including food. Most lizards will need to be put in small cages lined with paper towels in the first few weeks of life.
- Substrate could be ingested or stuck on babies, this is why paper towels are used.
- If your species is arboreal, put in a couple branches or fake vines.
- Add a small water dish or get a misting bottle ready if the species only drinks water droplets(ex. chameleons and tropical geckos).
- Make sure the cage has the proper heat and humidity for babies. Babies will usually shed their first shed in 24 hours and you need to make sure it all comes off. Having the proper humidity will ensure you don't have shedding issues.
- Some babies require less heat than adults so you need to research specific heat requirements for babies of the species you have. Baby lizards usually start eating after a couple days of hatching, so be ready with the food and your calcium/vitamin supplements.
Knowing About Types of Eggs
- Understand what to do if you have the large clutch of buried eggs. Some lizards lay numerous eggs in one clutch and they are usually buried and not stuck together.
- Some examples are Bearded dragons, monitors and chameleons.
- Some lizards lay only two eggs at a time, usually buried and not stuck together. Some examples are anoles, crested geckos and leopard geckos.
- Understand what to do if you have Egg Gluers. These are geckos that usually lay two eggs that are stuck together and are usually stuck to something inside the cage, most often a branch or the glass of the enclosure.
- Examples of Egg Gluers are Giant Day geckos, Tokay geckos, White-lined geckos and many others).
- Be extremely careful in dealing with glued eggs. These types of eggs have a hard shell and if you try to separate the eggs or remove them from whatever they are stuck to, they usually break and die.
- If the eggs are stuck to glass you can try removing them gently with a razor blade. Be VERY careful and slow so you do not break them.
- If the eggs are on a branch, try to remove the branch and place it in the incubator. Do not try to remove them from the branch or they will break. Try to tape a plastic cup on the branch if it is too big to fit in a container.
- Know which parents will eat their young, and which will guard their young. Precautions are in order if you have the kind of geckos that eat their young.
- You don't want baby geckos loose in the incubator after they hatch. If none of this works for you and you are afraid the parents will eat the babies, tape a plastic cup over wherever the eggs are laid in the cage.
- Some geckos will guard their eggs and babies so you don't have to worry about this (Tokay and White-Lined geckos are two examples). Just keep the cage warm and humid and the eggs should hatch without any issues.
- If you have Tokay gecko eggs, watch out! Tokays will defend their eggs and babies and will not hesitate to bite you if you try messing with them.
- Understand if you may have the kind of eggs that don't need incubators. Most lizard eggs need incubators, but some do not. Examples are:
- Most chameleon species
- Crested geckos (and other Rhacodactylus species)
- Any other lizard that comes from a mild climate where it isn't hot can be incubated at room temperature. Room temperature means somewhere in the 70's F (low 20s C.)
- If you don't need an incubator, you can put the incubation containers in a dark place inside your house, like in a closet, under the bed or under a table etc. Check them once a week or so to make sure they are growing well and wait till they hatch. Very easy.
- Know if temperature will change the sex or time of hatching. Some things to consider...some species of lizard are what's called "temperature sex dependent" when it comes to incubation. This means if you incubate at a certain temperature you will get either males or females and if you incubate in the middle of these temperatures you will get mixed sexes.
- Research the species of lizard eggs you have to find out if they are sex dependent or if they hatch faster at certain temperatures. When you research what temperatures you need to incubate eggs of any species you will see that there is a range of both temperatures and days of incubation.
- For example let's say 82-87 degrees F (27-30 degrees C) for 60-90 days would be the range you found for your species. The warmer you set your temperature, the faster your eggs will hatch. So, if you set it for 87 degrees, they will most likely hatch around 60 days. However, just because they hatch faster doesn't always mean they will hatch better. Many times the longer the eggs are incubated, the stronger the babies are when they hatch. Whatever you decide to choose (in your temperature range) will probably produce good results, but it is good to know.
