Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i'm not new to reptiles, as i had a green iguana back when i was in high school, and i'm currently raising a redfoot tortoise (pic below!). my boyfriend (whom i've converted to the joys of reptiles) is interested in leopard geckos, so i thought that i'd hop over to this forum and see what you guys had to say.

temperament: are they better of as display animals, or can they become friendly enough that they'll tolerate being handled well? i know that some herps make better pets than others, so i was curious.

health: are they generally hardy animals (assuming they come from a breeder; i'd not get one from a pet store), or are they prone to being sickly?

food: what kind of diet do they require?

environment: what would one gecko need for living space?

thanks so much in advance, and if anyone has any good links to gecko websites, we'd appreciate it!

Leopard Geckos are generally one of the easiest Geckos to raise. They tolerate being handled and are very hardy as long as cared for properly. The eat a diet of crickets and mealworms and they need a dish of calcium readily available and of course a shallow water dish. You can feed them only crickets or only mealworms but I believe a good variety keeps them healthy! You can also give waxworms but only as a treat. It has been mentioned in some postings that leos can become addicted to waxworms and refuse to eat anything else. They require an under the tank heater, a dry hide and aa humid hide. The humidity helps them shed. As for substrate, you can keep them on paper towels ( easy maintainance), tiles, or sand although opinions on this varies. I keep my adult leos on sand and have had no problems but I feed them their crickets in a seperate cage so they don't ingest the sand.
Hope this helps.

when you say to have a dish of calcium available... well, for my tortoise, i use rep-cal calcium dusted on his food every couple of days or so. do geckos just eat the calcium from a dish? i've heard of the method where you put the bugs in a ziplock bag and shake them with some powdered supplement for feeding. do they not do this?

and i assume that sand is considered a no-no by some because of possible ingestion and impaction? what about bed-a-beast (shredded coconut husk)? i like that for my tort, because he'll occasionally eat some of his substrate, and that way it just passes through as a little extra harmless fiber.

and if they need a dry and a humid hide, how should the rest of the enclosure be? dry, or humid?

thanks so very much!

In my opinion sand is fine as a substrate, for geckos over 6". I much prefer repti-carpet though. Repti-carpet is sort of expensive, but it's much better than paper towels in my opinion. It also conducts heat better.
-----
My blood is workin', but my, my heart is...DEAD!

Read some of the caresheets of the sponsors of this forum, just click on their banners. Also do some searches for leopard gecko care, and all if not most of your questions will be answered, also that way you will have them for reference.

If you're confused by anything post it here

Good luck

www.milwaukeereptiles.com/LeopardGeckoCare.pdf
-----
Brian Skibinski
Brian@MilwaukeeReptiles.com
WYSIWYG