Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok, so this weekend I bought 2 female leopard geckos. Ill just refer to them as gecko A and gecko B for the time being.

Anyway the first day i had them, i had to make a sudden final change to the terrarium i had set up for them so i put them in 2 seperate shoebox size containers for about 24 hours in total. In the terrarium there is one hiding spot on the cool side, which is more than big enough for them both. Anyway, they walked around for a bit in the beginning but found the hiding place pretty quickly. I go into the room regularly to check on them and i only ever see gecko A out of the hiding place, but rarely. I also saw her drink once. Today I tried feeding them, but I had trouble monitoring them well becasue neither ever left the hiding spot. So I just let the crickets walk into the hiding place and then they got eaten. Since I cant really see them im not sure which gecko is eating what, but im almost certain that its only gecko A eating. I havnt seen gecko B out of the hiding place once yet.

It's not really that big of a problem i suppose casue I only jsut got them on sunday....and they are probably quite stressed out from the voyage too and from the reptile show (not sure exactely how far away the breeder lived, but I'm more than 3.5 hours from where the show was). Lastly, when i switched the geckos from plastic shoeboxes to the terrarium, gecko B got really pissed at me for trying to nudge her out of the showbox, she actually hissed and snapped at me.

I dont wanna go lifting up the hiding spot and freak gecko B out even more. My dad is telling me that i should probably put 2 hiding places in the terrarium, casue he thinks that gecko A is dominant over gecko B and sort of "bullying" her. What do you people think I should do, should i just wait a little longer and give her time to settle in?

thanks in advance

yah you definately need more than one hide. Put many many hides in the cages, also do try to watch them feed so that you know both are eating equal amounts.

And it is early for them, give them a week at least to adjust, some take longer others sooner.

Also how old are they? Hatchlings will be jumpy.

Good luck, don't worry too much

ya im not really that worried, i mean these 2 leopard geckos are real healthy and well fed, so a couple of days without food wouldnt kill them. Their not hatchlings anymore, juvenile id say, you can still see the bands fading away.

I wasnt aware that multiple hides were neccesary, i had leopard geckos for quite a while in the past, even bred them succefully with just one "municipal" hide a moist hide.

thanks for the help

i seperated my two juvinile leos and they both seemed to pick up after that. even the 'dominate' one seemed more lively. and the one that was being bullied is doing great. eating more and climbing all over the place. i took them out of one 20 long and put them into 2 20 longs. they seem to love.

give them another day or two together. When I got my two girls there was alittle bit of a scuffle (one is a full month older and a bit bigger) but they ended up getting alone fine and now they sleep and hunt together (hunt as in walk their fat butts to the food dish and eat). Did you ask the breeder what he/she was feeding them?

definately put more hides in there. I have 6 for my 2 geckos.

It also took them a few days for them to adjust. The first few days they didn't eat, now 2 weeks later they are eating 20-30 small mealies a day. One of them has already shedded.

Below is a pic of my cage, it might give you some ideas for more hides. it's alittle out of date, I have one more additional hide in there, there's a 3rd hide made of ceramic on the 2nd level (another warm hide.)

Also are you giving them 12 hours of "day light" and 12 hours of night light? What are the temps in your cage? If you want to see your geckos at nighttime, get a red lightbulb (red glass, not painted) from walmart for like 2 bucks. That way you can monitor their behavior without disturbing them

ya the temps are fine...not sure in fahrenheit, but its like 22 celcius on the cold side and 30 even a tiny bit higher right under the lamp (around 90 F i think). The day is like 14 hours and the night 10, but i guess since its becoming winter i could give them less daylight.

In theory i guess there would be 3 hides in total tho, theres the main "cave" on the cool side, theres the humid hide and then theres also a hollowed out cork tube on the warm side....what i meant earlier was that there was only one hide on the cool side.

Ive seen one of the geckos (the one that eats and moves around) in the hollow tube like 2 or 3 times, but the other is constantly in the "cave"

just monitor them like you have been doing, if that one starts to lose weight then be worried, but I think he's just getting useto his enviroment.