Question about eggs...

[rachelk]

I was wondering what you do with fertilized eggs you don't want? See, I want to get pygmies, a male and a female or two, but I do not want babies... I feel bad just tossing the eggs since they are fertilized, is that stupid? How do you deal with this kind of situation? Are the eggs always going to be fertilized since the chams will be housed together?

 

[PantherVeileD]

just don't get a male.. Have a group of females only. Infertile eggs you won't feel as bad throwing it away because theres no life in it..

 

[rachelk]

Ok, but has anyone tossed fertilized eggs before?

 

[philanddeb818]

My question first would be, "Have you moved the eggs?" Because if you move them they need to be moved in the same manner they were presented in the soil. Meaning, if you were to pick up the egg, and move it, it would need to be placed in the EXACT same position without changing it's orientation. This is because the membrane contains an embryo that needs the exact orientation that it was born with to survive. Moving it in any other manner would mean death because it must stay in it's normal orientation.

If you have not moved the eggs, contact someone on the forum nearest you who breads this species. They will most likely be able to help you and the viable eggs will not be lost.

If you have moved the eggs in a manner that you think is not healthful to a viable offspring, then I would use the eggs as part of a gut load to a feeding colony.

 

[PNsSP]

if ur gunna have males and females together then ur asking for babies and theres no way around it. Even with just females, if theyr WC or if theyv been mated before then u can still get fertilized eggs from retained sperm. Right now i have 12 eggs from a WC thats never had any contact with other pygmies since i got her 3 months ago... all 12 were laid in a 40 day timespan. If u ask me it comes down to asking urself why u dont want baby pygmies and come up with a solution. Do u not want to worry about incubating them? leave them where they wer laid. Dont know how uur going to feed them? 5 bucks at PETCO gets u a good amount of fruit flies. No space for them? Sell them. Im sure plenty of people on these forums would want one. ... Just dont expect to put males and females together and not have babies.

 

[dodolah]

Incubate those eggs and sell the babies here or give them away to people who will care for them. Don't kill them just because you are unable to care for them.
Also, please separate your male and female pygs and don't let them breed.
If you put them together then you should expect they will breed and reproduce.

 

[rachelk]

I don't have them, I was wanting to get a pair of pgymies later on and was wondering what to do if this situation arises. I could not just "kill" the eggs, but I would not be able to incubate them so I would have to find someone to take them if they had eggs. I was always under the impression that you should have one male pygmy and 2 females or whatever but since I do not want the babies even though they are very cute, I don't think I could hatch them since I have no experience. That is why I was wondering.

Because don't you have to incubate the eggs for them to hatch? You could not just leave them where they were laid correct?

 

[PNsSP]

There is actually nothing really special to incubating the eggs. If you happen to find any mark the tops and place them in a tupperware container with some moist vermiculite or coco fiber soil (vermiculite is better), make a little hole with your finger, and place the eggs in the soil with the markings facing up. Then just put them somewhere for the next 60-90 days and occasionally check up on them. It's actually fairly simple to do, the only hard part is waiting. You can even make things easier on your part by just leaving the eggs where they were laid. If you have crickets around during hatchtime though, the babies could get eaten while they try to reach higher ground. Or, depending on what kind of substrate you use, little bugs and nasty things can get to the eggs, which is why removing them and putting them in vermiculite is the better thing to do.

Dealing with hatchlings is a different issue. I normally have trouble finding feeders small enough to feed to neonates. Fruit flies are usually available in most pet shops (atleast from my experience), and others can be ordered online.

Also, you don't need to get males AND females. I think less per container is better anyway. I've seen males physically attack eachother while females (and males with females) compete for food. Usually 1 male and 2 females is something you would wanna do for the purpose of breeding.

What kind of enclosure do you plan on keeping them in?

... you're talking about brevs right?

 

[TreelionsUK]

Or you could just leave the eggs in the substrate to incubate,then rehome them when they hatch...culling them would be a shame.
As said many people would jump at the chance of free pygs