jonhollister
Seven playing around on my hand
I think Seven may be a boy just like TARDIS. I know sex isn't supposed to be knowable until month six but I see little hemipenes - not really visible in this video though. Again that pisses me off because I incubated for all females and I hate having to split males out to prevent more eggs from being laid - the males' lives are less enriched without other geckos around.
When I say I incubated for females I mean that I set the incubator at a specific temperature. You see, geckos don't have sex chromosomes to determine anatomical gender like people do.
Instead, leopard gecko sex is determined by temperature. 80 to 83 degrees Fahrenheit makes 99% females, 87 to 90 degrees makes 99% males, and above 90 degrees will either kill the egg or produce a "hot female". A hot female is aggressive and breeds poorly, and is more likely to have health issues.
In between 83 and 87 degrees Fahrenheit you get a mix of females and males proportional to how high the temp is in that range. Closer to 82 makes more females, closer to 87 more males.
I incubated all the geckos save TARDIS between 82 and 82.5 degrees, so I expected all females. Unfortunately TARDIS hatched before my professional incubator arrived, and while the DIY incubator that TARDIS was in for the first week claimed to be at 82, it may have actually been hotter, explaining why TARDIS is looking like she will actually be a male. I put TARDIS in the professional incubator as soon as it arrived but it may have been too late as sex determination is made by temperature within the first two to three weeks - one of which TARDIS spent in my DIY incubator.
But all the others were incubated in a pulse proportional thermostat controlled incubator, in my case the Zoo Med Reptibator (cannot recommend highly enough!). And so I should be getting all females from the Reptibator eggs! It looks like it's just my luck to get the one male out of a hundred born even when incubated for females between 80 and 83.
So sad...
Seven playing around on my hand
I think Seven may be a boy just like TARDIS. I know sex isn't supposed to be knowable until month six but I see little hemipenes - not really visible in this video though. Again that pisses me off because I incubated for all females and I hate having to split males out to prevent more eggs from being laid - the males' lives are less enriched without other geckos around.
When I say I incubated for females I mean that I set the incubator at a specific temperature. You see, geckos don't have sex chromosomes to determine anatomical gender like people do.
Instead, leopard gecko sex is determined by temperature. 80 to 83 degrees Fahrenheit makes 99% females, 87 to 90 degrees makes 99% males, and above 90 degrees will either kill the egg or produce a "hot female". A hot female is aggressive and breeds poorly, and is more likely to have health issues.
In between 83 and 87 degrees Fahrenheit you get a mix of females and males proportional to how high the temp is in that range. Closer to 82 makes more females, closer to 87 more males.
I incubated all the geckos save TARDIS between 82 and 82.5 degrees, so I expected all females. Unfortunately TARDIS hatched before my professional incubator arrived, and while the DIY incubator that TARDIS was in for the first week claimed to be at 82, it may have actually been hotter, explaining why TARDIS is looking like she will actually be a male. I put TARDIS in the professional incubator as soon as it arrived but it may have been too late as sex determination is made by temperature within the first two to three weeks - one of which TARDIS spent in my DIY incubator.
But all the others were incubated in a pulse proportional thermostat controlled incubator, in my case the Zoo Med Reptibator (cannot recommend highly enough!). And so I should be getting all females from the Reptibator eggs! It looks like it's just my luck to get the one male out of a hundred born even when incubated for females between 80 and 83.
So sad...