Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I need so much help. I don't know if I have a male or female. I know how to check, but my gecko is so mean I can't pick it up. I know it won't hurt if it bites me, I'm scared I'll accidentally hurt it when I react. Also, I feed him/her/it mealworms, small to medium. But, it doesn't seem to eat very much. It's about 5 to 6 months old. How much should I expect it to eat? And my last question...I want to learn more about breeding, to decide if I want to later. Can anyone give me advice or a good site to go to or anything? Thank you so much.

Well lets see.....I had my female blizzard out a while back and she's a bit of a cranky brat.....she bit me and my reaction sent her flying across her tank...but she's fine thankfully. What i've seen done and will be doing myself next i attempt to see if for sure she's a SHE, is put her in a container with a see through bottom, then hold the container up so you can see the underside.

As for feeding, i've observed that in my 7 geckos their eating habits vary. Two of them i can't satisfy even feeding 15-20 or more mealworms per day, while a few eat 5-10/day and others eat only every other day. Six of them are all around the same size and age (at least i think so) while the 7th is my adult male Boo. He'll eat every couple of days.

Theres many people on the forum who can tell you more about breeding than i as i haven't allowed my girls and boys to get together yet, but what i do know is that you need alot of room LOL.

Hope that helps
Red
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Crested Gecko Zeek:1.0
LEOS: Boo: 1.0 normal , Bronx & Nala: 1.1 blizzard,
Lily: 0.1 patternless, Abby: 0.1 albino, Zoe: 0.1 reduced pattern, Dot: 0.1 hypo
Chip: 1.0 papillion (small dog)

Thank you so much. I guess if it's growing, and seemingly healthy, then it's eating enough? I hope so. Thanks for your info...I'll definitely use the see through bottom thing.

What size mealies are you feeding you guys? Mine takes large ones, and I've started to cut him down to 5 per day. At 5 months old he was eating sometimes 10 per day. After he started to get rather obese and lethargic I started to cut him off at 5. So far with this I've seen great results. He is a lot more active and alert, and is more responsive to me. A lot of people here say to feed your juvies as much as they will eat. However as I've come to see, mine has a tendency to overeat if presented the oppurtunity. Obesity is bad m'kay?

Noodle Boy...any chance you watch south park a little too much?...lol

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I feed medium sized regular mealworms. Only Boo will take the suerworms and only maybe one or two. Its not worth the money to buy them really. I stick to the regular mealworms cause i've found a great supplier and i have a small colony of my own. None of my geckos are huge or obese. The two geckos that eat like pigs are the smallest of my group so they have alot of growing to do. Granted Dot is getting bigger than Bronx but since they aren't overweight i'm not going to cut them back.

I haven't been around much in the evenings as i've either been working or sleeping in preparation for the overnight shift so i haven't seen my guys up and active. They all curl up and sleep during the day....normal for nocturnal animals, but the nights i have been home, i can tell ya they are very active. I can hear them moving around alot, it usually keeps me awake.

Red
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Crested Gecko Zeek:1.0
LEOS: Boo: 1.0 normal , Bronx & Nala: 1.1 blizzard,
Lily: 0.1 patternless, Abby: 0.1 albino, Zoe: 0.1 reduced pattern, Dot: 0.1 hypo
Chip: 1.0 papillion (small dog)

How did you start your colony? I have a container that has my worms in it, but it is now getting beetles. I don't know what to do.

By the way, I hate beetles

I followed the instructions from, i believe, leoloverlounge.com
My mind has yet to recover from to much stress so don't quote me on that but i believe thats the site with the info on how to breed them. Once i got aliens (or the stage of mealworm thats all white and small before it becomes a beetle) i moved them to the alien box, from there i put beetles into the beetle box. In the beetle box i have a small amount of substrate and after a few weeks i remove all the beetles and dump the substrate into the *baby mealworm* box.....Yes i have alot of boxes LOL. Usually i don't do that until i see tiny AND i mean tiny worms, then i refill the beetle box with substrate and put back the beetles. I had to get rid of my entire colony after an infestation of *booklice* a type of mite from a supply of crickets i picked up that got into my mealworms. I washed as many of the larger worms as i could (THEY HATE THAT BY THE WAY LOL) and tried to start over but i ended up finding a supplier and have been slacking off on my own colony. I've just started up again with beetles that i've gotten from my first supply of mealworms and only recently have i been feeding my baby mealworms to my geckos.....i had trouble getting them to grow actually.....it was the temps i think....tanks for my geckos are at the right temps but the room temp is low so i had to raise it. Once that happened my worms began to grow like mad.....I'm also feeding really good foods for water sources and i've observed much better results in the mealworms (sweet potatos, carrots etc.)

Red
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Crested Gecko Zeek:1.0
LEOS: Boo: 1.0 normal , Bronx & Nala: 1.1 blizzard,
Lily: 0.1 patternless, Abby: 0.1 albino, Zoe: 0.1 reduced pattern, Dot: 0.1 hypo
Chip: 1.0 papillion (small dog)