Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi Im looking at buying a pair of flat rock lizards.any info you can give me on care would be great.Would these lizards make a good first time breeding project?Im asking because I am finally going to start breeding lizards!thanks to all who take the time to read and reply
nick

I have kept P. guttatus and P.intermedius for about 10 years- but long time ago.
They are easy to keep. Just provide a tall setup with a fake rock backwall and rock piles with lots of mainly horizontal devices.
Hot and bright basking spots are a MUST. These days I would only use metal halides.
They eat the usual feeder insects but do not manage very large prey items. Also they do not need much food.
Sadly skittishness varies a lot between individuals. I had one pair, which did bask all day and could be watched well. Another pair was hardly seen at all in a neighbouring tank under the same conditions. Anytime, I entered the herp romm, they immediately vanished.
They do not make a good breeder project for a beginner.
From my experiences they only lay two eggs and not more than 2, maybe 3 clutches a year. My females never buried the eggs, but squeezed them into small crevices. Since you do not see any signs of gravidity in females carrying two relatively small elongated eggs, I NEVER managed to find the clutches in time. All eggs were hidden very well and dried out before I found them. Very sad!
So you need luck to find the eggs and even if you find all, you will never produce large amounts of babies.
But since Platysaurus are extremely colourful lizards, which are not difficult too keep and since all specimens in the trade are imports, I think EVERY breeding success with these should be great and a step into the right direction.
But again: Do not expect to produce many babies.
Also it is important to buy pairs from the same import. Females of the different Platysaurus species do all look VERY similar, so its not easy to find a female for a given male. You often would end up with mixed species pairs.

Hope that helps

Ingo

thanks for the info.One more question though.what in your oppinion would be a good first time breeding project in lizards.heres what I have so far(I thought about leos but everyone says there eggs are pretty hard to incubate for a beginner).
bibrons geckos
golden geckos
day geckos
flying geckos
green or brown anoles

if you have any advice or more ideas I would be glad to hear them.I do have an incubator to incubate eggs too.also I would like all the lizards to be under one and a half foot long or around that length even though I have plenty of cages.thanks for your time
nick

I would recommend to start with giant day geckos. They are colorful, the babies are easy to sell, eggs hatch under even adverse circumsrtances at almost 100% rate, the adults live long and are easy to keep.
I breed this species since 19 years and I am still not tired of them.
As all animals from your list, you won´t end up with hundreds of babies, but 6-12 per female and year are possible.
But please do not pay too much attention to all those caresheets around and start with a big tank. To my experience, animals do much bette rin tanks of 65g and up. Smaller ones still let them breed and survive, but they loose a lot of their agility.
If you want sth more prolific , go for Paroedura pictus.

Hope that helps

Ingo

thanks for all the help.I just have a few moore questions.I have took care of hatchling lizards that were born live(lepidophyma flavimaculata)so could I start with some of the smaller day geckos.how do you breed your giant day geckos?do you cool at all?also Ive heard that pictus hatchling are hrd to care for.I live with my parents so I cannot have feeder roaches or flys so would this eliminate the pictus.thanks for all your help.
nick

To my experience pictus babies are very hardy and can start breeding as early as six months old. Just raise them as singles. In groups the weaker ones very often die.
All baby geckos or other insectivorous lizard babies will need the same feeder insects you give to the pictus.
I have selected my grandis offspring for low intraspecific agressivity. So I am now able to keep a group of 1,3 together in a 120 g (do not try more than 1,1 with your standard grandis).
This year this group produced 43 fertile eggs.
I reduce lights from 14 to 11 hours between october and march and the herp room gets colder in winter than in summer. Hence my grandis do only lay eggs from April to october.
I think the resting period is necessary to give them tiome to recover. Otherwise females lifespan can be significantly shortended by too high egg production.

Ci@o

Ingo

thanks for all your help and I will hopefully get some geckos or lizards to breed at the upcoming reptile show.Im not wanting to breed for money but just to get some experience as someday i hope to deal with reptiles as a living.thanks again for all your help and time.
nick