So your leopard gecko laid eggs, and you don't know what to do with them. Luckily for you, this page has everything you need to know about eggs and incubation!

***For information on pregnant geckos and the laying process please visit the health page***

***For more information on raising hatchlings, visit the hatchlings page***

Fertile vs Infertile Eggs

First and foremost, you need to know if an egg is fertile or not. the most obvious sign will be whether or not the laying female was ever in contact with a male. If not, the eggs are 99% of the time infertile. The 1% accounts for an interaction you may not know about. For females that have been with a male, the eggs will more than likely be fertile.

Incubating Eggs

There are multiple different methods used to incubate eggs. From cheap DIY projects to $$$ top quality incubators, there's something that works for everyone. These are just the two most popular incubating options.

Incubators should stay between 80-90F (27-32C). If you want to hatch females, set the temperature from 80-83F (27-28C). If you want to hatch males, set the temperature from 85-90F (29-32C).

Within the incubator, you also want to have a specific container for the eggs to hatch in. Some people have one big container that houses all their eggs while others have separate, smaller containers for each clutch.

There's a few things you'll need inside this container and those are substrate, humidity, and oxygen. Substrate can vary based on the individual, but most people use vermiculite, perlite, or pangea hatch. The substrate will need to be misted down to create 80% humidity within the container. Most breeders poke airholes in their containers and routinely mist to keep up the humidity while also supplying oxygen for hatchlings. Others though don't poke holes and simply open the container on a daily basis to swap oxygen. This can lead to suffocating hatchlings though, so I would recommend having air holes.