Dented Eggs

Hi,

I'm new to this forum, really glad I found it.
I've done some research on this subject already, but did not find an accurate answer.

So I've had a female and male leopard gecko for about a month now.
A friend of mine was the previous owner of these cuties, and as far as I know they are a breeding pair.
I did not know my female was pregnant and this morning I woke up and saw an egg laying in their terrarium.
I was not prepared for this but as soon as I saw it, I made an incubator and put the egg in it.

Now my problem is, there are 2 big dents in the egg, I think it was because she had no moist vermiculite nest to lay the egg in and it dried out.
I think there was 5 hours or so in between until I took the egg and put it in the moist vermiculite incubator.
Is this egg done or is there still a chance it can hatch ?

Thanks !

There's always a chance it can still hatch, you want to incubate until it deflates. Make sure you have proper humidity in the incubator, it should hit 80%. The egg should inflate and fill up after awhile. Of course it's hard to say if it's good or not, but for now you want to just leave it alone and incubate, and hope for the best.

Good luck

Thanks for the fast response Mardy.
I don't have an humid meter, I did look up a tutorial on how to moisten the vermiculite and followed that.
I digged the egg in for about 80% and put a moist cloth over it.
It looks like it's dented quite bad from 2 sides, I will hope for the best though.

It looks like the female still has 1 egg in her. Do they leg all their eggs at once or can there be a couple days in between ?

Females can lay one egg rather than 2. Not both eggs are always developed fully to be laid at the same time.

I see, thanks. Hopefully the egg is fine.

I'm still reading up on more information about breeding.
I think I made another major mistake I did not know about.

I read on many sites that you're not supposed to flip the egg over.
When I took the egg out and put it in the incubator, I put it on the other side.
Did this kill the embryo ?

I did find this on a different website:

"Actually after some time in the egg, the embryo will attach to the egg and if moved the fluids will drown the young neonate.
However, this doesn't happen right away.
We have never had an issue moving eggs like this in the first week or so of the lay.
After we start incubating, we are very careful not to move change the position of the eggs if we do need to move them."

That's correct you aren't supposed to flip them. But it'll only drown the embryo if it has attached itself to the side of the egg. You can only hope it didn't.

I see. Thanks again.

I was checking up on the egg today, it feels kind of soft.

I read on the internet that you can put a damp paper towel on a dented egg, sometimes it helps.
That wouldn't be the cause of it, right ?