What I do when I find eggs...
I have a friend that has been incubating her tokay eggs in a Hovabator (I think you can get them for around $60 now. I have one an I think I paid something like $30 at the time. I think they're very important for soft shell eggs like snake and leopard geckos eggs). I've never done that, and because of their egg laying habits it's not always easy to do. Most of the time they will lay the eggs on either the wall or one of their furnishings. And since they're "gluers" you don't want to try to remove the eggs from where they were laid. What I do is if they are laid on anything in the cage, I cover the eggs with one of those tiny clear deli cups (the kind they use for salad dressing) with small holes punched in it, and tape it over the eggs. I've had to cut the cup to fit a few times (such as in corners of the cage or for an oddly shaped object they happened to lay them on) and make sure the tape's not where the baby might get stuck to it when it hatches out (no exposed sticky side of the tape). I've used several kinds of tape, but mailing tape and duct tape seem to work best because they stick even in the humid cage conditions. Sometimes it was impossible to cover the eggs because more were laid right next to another clutch that's when they're not covered in the first place like I did this last time)- then I removed the cork bark they were laid on and put them one of those plastic shoeboxes (and melted holes in it with a soldering iron). That most likely wouldn't work for most people with just one breeding group of tokays because I used the heat of the room to hatch them (the big iguana cages seem to keep the room toasty warm). The shoebox stayed around 75 at night and 85 by day, sometimes a little higher or lower depending on the room temp. I also misted it around once a day sometimes less sometimes more- basically to keep a little water at the bottom of the box for humidity.I suppose I could have done vermiculite/water for a substrate, but didn't think of it at the time (and never used it for tokay eggs anyway). 5 of the 6 tokays hatched. #5's shell cracked on the 6th and I thought he was going to come out. I took pictures of the egg with the "x" shaped crack in it and kept checking on it, hoping to get some cool pictures of gecko #5 hatching out. Then after half the afternoon went by, I got concerned about it and opened it up to find him dead in the shell with just a bit of yolk sac to absorb.
The following day we were heading out of town and when I saw that the other egg in the clutch was starting to look funny, I took a gamble (it was a big change from the day before- dark with one small white spot). The other would would have survived (well as far as the amount of yolk sac left because I've had a few that have hatched with some yolk sac still left to absorb and they did fine- he probably had other problems that caused his death) and I figured I better get it's sibling out before we left. I put only a tiny chip in it- just enough to poke the gecko to see if he was alive- if he was I was going to cover the hole edge with petroleum jelly and set a tiny piece of celophane over top it which would stick to the petroleum jelly (I learned that in an article on repairing turtle eggs [Vivarium, vol.8 no.5] and it worked on one of my tokay eggs that was damaged from our move). Anyway- I chipped open that tiny hole and the tokay just shot out of it- all the yolk sac was absorbed and he appeared very healthy. Lucky for me since we were just about to leave. I would have had to take him with me had there been any problems and that wouldn't have been a fun time for the new little gecko 8-/.
