I'm starting to sigh a big sigh of relief here. A couple of weeks ago, I had an incident with my incubator that resulted in a short term temperature spike that I feared would kill all of my eggs collected thus far in 2009 (of course the Rhacodactylus eggs are incubated at room temperatures and were unaffected). I had a large number of helmeted gecko eggs and 5 Nephrurus milli eggs in this incubator. I was pretty discouraged by this setback in my breeding efforts. This past week however, the first 2 helmeted gecko babies and a single N. milli baby hatched right on time and are doing well. Apparently these little guys are pretty resilient and were able to withstand this elevated temperature (slightly over 100º F for an hour or two). So, if these first eggs which were late in the incubation process were able to make it, I have hopes that the rest of the eggs are good as well.

In other news, I've been published... sort of. The relatively new online gecko blog called Gecko Time  contacted me about a month ago to see if I would submit an article about helmeted geckos. I see that the article is up today. Check it out at http://www.geckotime.com/

Summer is flying by. I didn't realize it had been so long since I had updated. I had a little flurry of buying this spring (after quite a flurry of selling). The geckos I bought have settled in nicely and are growing well. I've enjoyed keeping and learning about my new webfoots (P. rangei) as well as my Nephrurus wheeleri. Both are cool gecko species, but the webfoots are just so unique. I'm really enjoying them. The other new additions aren't new species to me - just additions to my existing groups. I picked up a male P.I. chahoua to complete a pair for the future. I added a couple of juvenile female N. milli, and added an unsexed full pinstriped crested gecko. I decided I needed to add a little new blood to my pinstripe groups. I'll need some unrelated animals for some of the nice holdbacks I'm getting from my existing groups.
Due to my work schedule, I generally start my breeding season a little later than some. I've been getting crested gecko eggs, but don't have any hatchlings yet for 2009. Shouldn't be long now. I have 3 Nephrurus milli eggs incubating. If they hatch for me, it would be a "first timer" for me. I'm a little disappointed in my Eurydactylodes agricolae pair this year. Last year was their first year of breeding and I got 2 good clutches of eggs late in the summer from which I hatched out 3 babies which have done well. I have gotten 4 clutches of eggs from my female this year and all have molded early in the incubation. The first clutch of the year looked questionable from the start, but the next 2 clutches had the appearance of nice, viable eggs. I hope I get some good eggs yet. If not, I might have to adjust my conditions a bit or try a new male next year.
Last, but not least, my helmeted gecko project has been a high priority for a couple of years now. Last year I hatched out a few, but had a lot of eggs go bad, and a few hatchlings that failed to thrive. I have quite a number of eggs in the incubator right now, and some of the first ones in are approaching 70 days of incubation, so I have my fingers crossed that I will soon see some positive results from this group.
Finally, I recently bought a used digital camera which I hope will allow me to take some new and updated pictures of some of my geckos. I hope to do a photoshoot soon, so watch for some updated pictures of my collection.