New Breeder Chronicles: The Geckos and the Elements

So far all my hatchlings have come from the Sunglow by Superhypo pair and for the most part the hatchlings look the same. That was until this past Saturday when I found a present in the incubator. Both of the eggs from my first Mack Snow Eclipse by Sunglow het RAPTOR pair hatched on the same day giving me the two beauties below.

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The one on the left has solid black eyes so the eclipse gene carried through but it still has the same hypo look that my other hatchlings have had. The one on the right, however, appears to be a either a RAPTOR or a Mack RAPTOR. It has very subtle yellow coloring with white legs, a white belly and solid red eyes. This means that my Mack Snow must also be het for Tremper Albino which I was not told by the breeder I bought it from. I didn’t even know that it would be possible to produce RAPTORs from this pairing, a very nice surprise indeed.

My family and I also had a scare at the end of August when Hurricane Irene came crashing through the area. I had to evacuate my family and all my animals about 50 miles east and leave my home to the elements. It really made me think how having an even larger breeding program could really be difficult to handle during an emergency like this. I only had about 10 geckos including hatchlings and preparing to leave with them at a moment’s notice was nerve wracking.

I put them all in disposable Glad containers with holes drilled in the lid. I boxed them up and they were fine. More difficult were my 2 turtles and the tortoise. They spent the evacuation in rubber totes and thankfully made the round trip with no problems. The geckos were also none the worse for wear. Upon returning we were lucky enough to find our house exactly how we left it. We didn’t even lose power so the incubator kept running. Many other people were not as lucky and were without power for over a week.

The final piece of news this month is 200 mixed Dubia nymphs and a roach starter kit just arrived from GregsExoticInverts.com. I have them set up and hope to take some video for our You Tube channel this week to show how we have them set up. Hopefully they will start breeding in the next couple of weeks.

The breeding season is coming to a close with only one egg left in the incubator. Next month will mark one year since I purchased my geckos and I’ll do a year end summary. As usually please post any questions or comments below and I’ll respond ASAP.