Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My first time trying to breed leopard geckos. My tangerine albino (Bliss)laid her first clutch on 5-23 and her second on 6-10. My jungle stripe (Little Egypt)laid her first clutch on 6-13. As I write this, my normal female (Norma - ok, I got a creative slump)is busy digging in the nest box. I guess I'm doing something right, as all the eggs look nice and white and firm so far, but if they keep this up at this rate, I'll need to set up a second incubator by the end of the month! They're all first year breeders, although the male (Leon)is proven (and seems to enjoy his work!).

Also, how do you experienced breeders out there keep weight on your females during the breeding season? I can get the jungle stripe to eat super worms, but the albino just turns her nose up at them. I worry that their tails are getting kind of thin.

Thanks in advance for the advice,
Leslie

You can look forward to having some more eggs, in all probability. My girls lay anywhere from 4 - 8 (2 egg)cluthches. Some people feed pinkie mice to fatten their girls up after & during breeding season. I am not too fond of that myself, so I usually feed a "buffet", crickets, waxworms (they love these & mine are not "addicted" as some people have talked about), mealworms (big & small). Also do NOT overlook proper hydration! I think some people might think desert or arid species don't need so much water...eggs contain a lot of water, guess where it came from!

Yes, I've definately seen an increase in water consumption. I clean and refill the water bowl twice a night at least as it gets low. My leos don't seem too thrilled with mealworms, except for the occasional superworm. They just leave them sit. Crickets, they love. I'll have to see if I can get some wax worms. The bad thing is that our best herp shop that carried EVERYTHING just closed. I'll have to make a special order for tiny crickets when the babies hatch. I hust hope they have more of a taste for mealworms than their parents have.

What size cricket is best to get for hatchlings? Is it true that they don't start eating right away? What advice can you give me on housing the babies? Especially right after they hatch. I understand that they can't tolerate quite as high a temp as adults. What about humidity for hatchlings?

Leslie

I feed 1/4 to 1/2 crickets to hatchlings, I am converting to small mealies when the crickets run out. Crickets smell & make to much noise! The hatchlings will not eat for several days, I have had some stubborn ones ignore food for a little over a week. The will shed & then eat. Don't bother feeding until he/she has shed. They will need a humid hide also. As far as housing, I use sweater boxes in a rack system. Temps range from 90* - 75* in the box. Good luck.

Thanks! As we've been posting, I've goten two more eggs! Now if I can just get them to hatch successfully....

Leslie

Are you using a hovabator? If you are, keep another thermometer around, the ones that come with the incubator are sometimes unreliable. Are you incubating for boys, girls or a mix? If you have never incubated eggs before check out "Albey's geckos" website. I don't have the URL handy...they are a forum sponsor, so go to the top of this forum and click on his little thing to get to his website, he has good info about setting up for incubation.

Actually, I made my own incubator, and so far it's doing pretty good. I used a fish shipping box, with, believe it or not, a 'hot rock' with a dimmer for a thermostat. I've also got a temp probe in the box and a regular thermometer as a check. I was worried about the rock melting the styrofoam, so I filled the bottom of the box with vermiculite, and I keep it moist. The eggs are in closed deli cups with the holes in the sides. If it looks like the humidity is getting low, I can add water to the vermiculite on the bottom, without disturbing the eggs, and the vermiculite in the cups draws in some humidity out of the air to re-hydrate the cups without having to add water. So far, so good. I've got just a mist of condensation on the top of the lids of the cups.

I'm incubating for a mix. Temps are 84-85 degrees, and are much more stable than I thought it might be. With the moist vermiculite on the bottom, it seems to act like a heat sink. Even when I take the top off to check the eggs (or to add some , the temps return to normal within a few minutes.

If I ever get the chance to have the thing empty, I plan to switch to a UTH for the heat, and will get a proper thermostat, but I did not realize just how fast these guys would breed, and I couldn't find any info on how long the gestation period was, so I cobbled this thing together overnight, and had just enough time to calibrate it before Bliss laid her first clutch. I've got another of the fish boxes. They're about the same footprint as the hovibator, but taller. Now if I can just figure out how to put in another layer...I'm running out of deli cups.

Leslie