Chinese Cave Geckos- Babies Hatching and Care Tips!

Hey everyone, today is the big day. I'm pretty sure we are to be expecting baby Mexican black kingsnake, so I'm gonna start the video and hope that it, ah, nope, nevermind. Okay, that didn't work. They're not pipping yet, they were due, oh, just a day ago? Okay, that's not too bad. There's something in that one. I thought I saw a black flash. Really? Yeah. Oh my gosh, yes, yes! There's a cave gecko, baby! Oh, look at him squiggling away! We have some Chinese cave geckos for sale in our retail store, and they're mostly adult females, and they started laying eggs. We went through their enclosure to clean one day, and we found some eggs buried in the substrate, so we kind of went through and excavated a bunch of eggs. We, as in our amazing staff, went through to find the eggs, and we decided, you know what, we're gonna incubate them, and I guess see what happens. How many did they end up finding? We've got two, four, six, eight, 10, 12, 14, 16 eggs! What's kind of cool is Chinese cave geckos, like other geckos, they lay just pairs of eggs at a time in intervals of every 60 to 90 days, I think, so these eggs have been in there for a little while. They've just done a really good job burying them, and we didn't find them until just now, because there's a lot of eggs in here, but we're gonna, I guess, try incubating them in just damp sphagnum moss, and we had to just do an overall clean of the enclosure, which is how we discovered them, and they can't go back in the enclosure. So anyway, this species incubates at 78 to 80 degrees, so lo and behold, our incubator is set to 80 degrees, so we're gonna toss these eggs in with our snake eggs, I guess, and see what happens. Today is the big day. I'm pretty sure we are to be expecting baby Mexican black king snakes. Ah, nope, never mind. I wonder if there's something in that one. Oh my gosh, yes, yes, there's a cave gecko baby. Oh, look at him, squiggling away. Oh my gosh, look at him, he hatched. Did you hatch? Oh yeah, he totally hatched from this egg. This is definitely an empty egg. Oh my goodness, we didn't even mean to breed these. These, their parents are for sale in our store. Oh my, they've only been incubating for, what, two weeks? Yeah, well, they probably were incubating in the enclosure for at least. Probably, yeah, so that goes to tell you that they were several weeks old and incubating just fine in our retail store, and we had no idea they even existed. So they just finished their incubation here, and it worked, oh my gosh. They lay in pairs, right? They do, yeah, so we can be expecting a second baby within the next, probably, 24 hours. Should we come back on the way home tonight and check it out? Yes, and I'm gonna keep him in here so that he can encourage whichever other egg is his sibling to come out in that time. Oh my gosh, we have them. Okay, end of the day, end of our shift, and we're gonna, we're back at Snake House to try to check for another, a second Chinese cave geckos. These are a really cool species. We've never really shown off before, but I guess if eggs are laid and eggs are hatching, this is a good way to feature them on the channel. I see one. Oh, and I see a second, right there. So he did hatch, yay, we've got two babies. Oh my goodness, you are kind of crazy. Oh, and you're gonna dig. Which one of you is the new one, and which one is the old one? Come here, oh my goodness. There's one. Oh, and here's a second, that one's totally empty. Yeah, okay, there are their eggs, or their shells, I should say. Come here, come here. They are kind of squirmy, squiggly, hard to catch, but look at that, we've got a Chinese cave gecko baby. Wow, look how clear those stripes are. They are beautiful. Those red eyes. Yeah, those eyes are crazy pretty. Oh my goodness, whoa, okay, yeah, and they're kind of crazy. So I would assume that these two are all we're gonna get for a little while. I wonder if this one was hatched before, and he was just tucked under. Oh, maybe he was, maybe we completely missed him. Well, we're gonna set up these two babies, because I think we're probably not to expect any others for a while, but again, I don't know when any of these eggs were laid, because we just found a bunch of them one day. So we'll set up these two babies, and then I guess we'll just wait for more to hatch? I guess. Chinese cave geckos are a really cool little lizard. I mean, they are like a combination between a leopard gecko and a crested gecko when it comes to both their behavior and their care and their setup. It's like a weird in-between between the two species. So they are terrestrial, like a leopard gecko, but they're kind of tropical, like a crested gecko, and they prefer room temperatures. They also, however, eat primarily live bugs, like leopard geckos, and they have the body shape of a leopard gecko, but they do kind of climb a little bit. Not sticky-footed climb, but they're just weird and in-between. So we're gonna set them up as we would a pet Chinese cave gecko. Another fun fact is they can actually be housed together as long as, when adults, you only have one male in the enclosure, because the males will fight. So babies, before they're mature, can be housed together no problem, but you can keep them together permanently, long-term, as long as they're either all females, or all females and just one male. So right now, it doesn't matter what they are, because they're not mature anyway. We are going to mist down a paper towel at the bottom, and I'm putting them in a critter keeper as opposed to a bin like in a rack, because our racks are heated in the back, and this is more of a room-temperature species. So they're just gonna stay in this at room temperature. However, they still like some enrichment and things to climb on and hide in, so we have a couple caves here. We're gonna put a piece of cork in here for them to climb on and hide underneath. Gonna throw, we'll put a rock over here as something to climb on. We'll give them a water dish over here. Oh, you know what I missed? I should probably, since they're a tropical species, add, what do you think, some moss under their hides? Probably. Yeah, that might be a good idea. This is our first time setting up babies. However, we have had some adults, again, just for sale, their parents, in our retail store for a while, so we're gonna kind of mimic that setup here. Got some moss. Okay, we'll add another kind of clump of moss under that hide. And I'll throw maybe a little bit under this, too, that they can burrow inside of and, I don't know, just play in. And so my final touch is going to be some greenery for some extra cover to help make them feel secure, and I guess they can climb on it if they want. But here we have our very easy setup for a baby Chinese cave gecko, or in today's case, two of them. So now we get to put them in. You're so cute. Oh my goodness, come here. What's coolest, they look like just miniature versions of the adults. They have the same stripes. They don't really go through an ontogenetic color change. These are just baby, tiny versions of their parents. Look at you. Now, with some socializing and some care and some patience, these can be handleable. As you can see, he's pretty skittish right now. I mean, I can't blame him. He thinks I'm a predator. So I don't blame you for being scared of me, but you are so cute. Yes, you are. Oh, there he goes. Okay, jumping into his habitat right away. Now I just have to grab the second one here. And their diet, like I was saying earlier, consists of just a variety of live insects that are, of course, appropriately sized. The general rule of thumb when feeding an insect-eating species of lizard is that the insect should be approximately the size as the distance between their eyes. That way, if it goes down sideways, say it's a cricket going down sideways, they can still handle it safely. What happens if you feed a reptile too large of an insect is you can actually paralyze their back legs, or really the back half of their body. And what ends up happening to cause this is the fact that lizards and other reptiles don't have protective discs in between their vertebrae. With humans, we have intervertebral discs. I'm probably butchering that term. I've only read about it. But those discs help cushion and protect our spinal cord. Reptiles don't have those discs in between the vertebrae. Their vertebrae are connected by like a ball-and-socket joint, essentially. So this exposes their spinal cord. And what happens is if you feed them too large of an insect and they take it down where their stomach is positioned, the insect will push up against their stomach, pushing against their spinal cord, and then it doesn't take very long for that pinched spinal cord to stop sending signals to the rest of the body at that point downwards. And so that's how you end up getting a reptile with paralyzed back legs. Essentially, wherever that insect is pushing up and pinching the spinal cord at, the rest of the body becomes paralyzed. So that's why it's so important to not feed too large of insects to your lizards at home because they could become paralyzed. So for using that general rule of thumb, this distance between his eyes would be around the same size as one of our 10-day-old crickets. So that's what we're going to feed these little cuties and get them eating before they're ready for their new homes. Now, we admittedly looked to Josh's Frogs, who also breeds this species, trying to get their recommendation of how big do you raise babies before you let them go? And they recommend about four inches long. So we've got a little bit of time on our hands to raise them up, get them an appropriate size. And I think at that size, you can probably use a loop and sex them, and then we can find new homes for them. So a lot of information there, I know, but these guys are super cute. I'm gonna put him in. We are going to start taking care of these two first babies we've ever hatched before and kind of accidentally bred. And we'll give the eggs some time to, I suppose, hatch more babies in the incubator. Oh, we've got some hog noses for another video. And let's check in on these Chinese cave gecko eggs. Do we have any more babies? Oh, nope. I do not see any more fresh hatches. All right, we'll let them keep cooking. And we are back again to check on our handy-dandy Wheelbanks incubator. Not a sponsor, just everybody asks what incubators we use, and it's Wheelbanks. Wheelbanks. Uh-oh. Homestatic incubator. Well, this isn't part of this video, but I mean, looks like the unicorn egg did not make it. But we have a hog nose. Can we do a hog nose in this video? Why not, right? Sure. We sneak it in. It's a Chinese cave gecko video, but I can't not have a hog nose in a video. We only have one egg in there, so it's one little baby. Oh my gosh, it hatched. Look at that, we have a baby hog nose. This was kind of an experimental clutch. We had Becky, who's just a conda, paired with Mike TV, who's a conda lavender, paired them together, hoping for just pet lavender stuff. And because of the genetics, this is pet lavender, and it looks like, based on the pattern, this is a conda morph too. Aw, are you a male or a female? I think a little girl. Aw, maybe we'll have to keep you since we kind of outcrossed a little bit. That's kind of why we did this pairing. It's in moss, by the way, because we wanted to experiment and see if we could incubate a clutch in moss, and it was a very small clutch. So we're like, meh, why not? It was a clutch of one. One egg, put it on moss, and it hatched. So yeah, kind of a fun little thing, but here we go, surprise hog nose. Awesome. Any more Chinese cave geckos? I don't know, let's take a look. Oh my gosh, I see them. Oh my gosh, there's three. Let's put this on the floor in case they crawl out. I'll go, be right back. Okay. All right, I brought the Chinese, what we're keeping them in at the shop. Cute, we can add them to it. Oh, we can see what they look like now because they grow. Oh, these ones? Yeah. Oh my gosh, look at all of them. One, two, three. Is there a fourth? Oh my gosh, you're so squiggly. Are there, yeah, is there a fourth in here? It would not surprise me, or do we just have just the three? Looks like just the three. Okay, oh my goodness, they're so cute. Okay, let's see if there's a size difference since these guys hatched. Looks like 13 days ago, so a two week difference. Oh no, not really. Maybe a little bit. Oh, there's a little bit. There's like barrel of monkeys. Oh my goodness, so two weeks old. Oh, they're so cute. Okay, and let's compare one of these to a freshly hatched baby. Oh my gosh, they are so squiggly. There's a little bit of a size difference. Yeah, a little bit of growing. Not much, but a little bit, enough to show that they've been eating a little bit. That one's a little bit more tame than the new hatched babies. Yeah, this one's already calming down a little bit. Hi buddy, you are so cute. Oh, a little jumpy still. Well, there we go, I guess. I love the eyes. They are so pretty. The super red eyes. That is so pretty. These are just stunning little geckos, and I love, again, the contrast between their bands and their background color. They are just so, so pretty, but okay. Let's toss these in. Look, he's digging. Oh, there he goes. He's going away. Wow, he's actually really efficient at digging. I'm gonna keep Boca's tail. Boca. Come here, little babies. We're gonna add you to your siblings. There you go. Baby number two for today. You look great, too. Oh my goodness, you are so skittish. Okay, baby number two. Baby number three for today. Yeah, it's weird that it's an odd number of babies, so it would not surprise me if there's another one hatching very, very soon. We still have quite a few good-looking eggs. One, two, three, four, five. Can we find the eggs that they hatched out of? Oh, yep, here's one. Here's a shell. Okay, so we should have one more egg shell in here somewhere. Oh, right here. Perfect. Okay. So how many eggs do we have left? A lot. Two, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. 11. Okay, 11 more eggs. There's the odd. Odd numbers, so yeah, there's gotta be one more still hatching in the next 24 hours. You are so cool. Oh, and there he goes. Man, I feel like a chicken farmer. I'm going in here every day looking for babies. Oh, there's one. There's a baby. And okay, well, we've got another one to take out here. Let's see. I don't know when all of these eggs are gonna eventually hatch, but they've got to at some point. Oh my gosh, there's more than one. Holy crap. One, two. Ah, no, don't escape. Ah, nope, stay in here. Ah, no, no, no. Calm down. One, two, three, four, five, six. There's six in here? One, two, three, four. No, come back. Got one. I think there's six in here. My goodness. Ah, no, Liv, ah. Oh, I just caught you in the air. Ah, come here. Stop escaping. Okay, calm down, calm down. I need, okay, they're still in there. Take a deep breath, guys. We're gonna calm down. We're gonna take a deep breath, and then I'm gonna put the lid on you. Okay, we have a container. I'll just put them in here. Here's an old egg container from Lily and Mirage's eggs. They can go in here. I'm here by myself. Otherwise, I'd have Ed's help. Release the kraken. Here, do your crazy little jump thing in this new container. I think that sounds like a good idea. Can you jump in here? Perfect, okay. One, two, three babies, four babies, five babies. I thought I saw six. Maybe there were only five. Oh, yep, I guess I'm going crazy. There's only five in here. Okay, five more babies, though. Oh, my goodness. Apparently, Chinese cave geckos, once they start breeding, are very prolific. Holy cow. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're still, okay. We're gonna just put this on right now. Calm down. Gonna do one last look, because it's kind of chaos in here. Now, sorry, I kind of turned you a little bit. We're gonna go like this. Oh, nope, there is another one. I knew there were six, or I thought there were. Okay, come here, come here. Oh, you thought you were hiding, did you? Oh, no. Oh, you're just as crazy as the others. I think this is about the most amount of chaos I can handle in a video by myself here. So we're gonna say, hello, cutie. Welcome to the world. Hello, crazy Chinese cave geckos. Yeah, you're everywhere. You guys are insane. But yeah, these are really cool little geckos. They are easy to take care of. It's really cool that you can keep them in groups as long as you only have one male. You can have multiple females together just fine. And yeah, if you've considered, or if you're looking for a new species of gecko to keep, and you have some prior gecko experience, definitely consider a Chinese cave gecko. We'll probably still have some of these available, because we have to raise them up for a bit before they're gonna be ready for their new homes. So if you're interested in one of these cuties, even though they're crazy, let us know. Email us at info at snakediscovery.com if you want one of these guys. Anyway, thank you for watching. We're gonna end it here. I think we still have a couple more eggs, at least one right there, that are developing, but it's just gonna keep going. I don't think this video would ever end if I waited until they all hatched, because we have more eggs in the incubator, actually. So thank you again for watching, and thank you Patreon backers for your amazing support as always. Oh, no, come back. No, okay. Oh gosh, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, well, we'll see you guys next time. Oh my God, there's more.