This is an update from a post below inquiring about housing males together. I replied with:

I have always kept my males separate. I, like you, have read it all over that they will fight. I have always had the understanding that that is the way it is with many geckos I have kept in the past. It makes complete sense too. If it is not a dominancy dispute, it would be a territorial or a "Right to court" dispute.

My friend has two different enclosures with a pair in each enclosure. Both pairs happen to be males. Both of the pairs have grown together. On pair is adolescent while the other pair is mature. The adolescent pair lives in a 15 gallon and the mature pair lives in a 55 planted terrarium. To this day, he has not had any fights at all. The mature pair is a year and a half old and the adolescents are almost a year.

He is aware that there may be a day where he needs to separate them if he sees any aggression.

Three weeks ago, I gave him my female to pair up with one of his mature males. I had him put her in the 55 gallon and had him take out the male who I did not want her to breed with and he is keeping him in a separate enclosure for the time being. I told him before we started this project that there was a possibility that after we do this, we may be crossing a point of no return as far as putting the males back together.

Why? Because not only will one male learn to breed but there after he may possibly learn why he needs to be territorial…to court of course. OR when he introduces the virgin male back into the enclosure when I take my female back, the mere scent of a previous presence of a female may habitually trigger aggression. My hunch is that these two males will not be able to co-exist in the same enclosure despite the fact that it is a well planted 55 or the fact that they grew up together. Do you think they will really remember each other???? I do not know that they will.

I will post the outcome in 3 more weeks after I bring my girl home. It should be interesting to see what happens.

I for one have done/seen things in the past that defied husbandry. But then again, I have seen consequences from defying rules. I personally believe in this case that it is best to keep the males separated. A vast majority of the wild males studied in New Caledonia are tail-less believed to be due to territory/ courtship disputes. It isn’t just tail loss but in an enclosure where they have limited space to escape, that stress and constant bullying would lead to a decline in feeding and eventually a decline in health.

I will always keep my males separate, regardless of my friend’s re-introduction outcome. I would not even want to risk the loss of their tails.

Please realize this is just my insight/opinion. Hope this helps.

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