Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello

first time poster from the uk,read the forums for a while before buying my first leopard.

I have a 2foot viv.
beech chips as substrate
cork pieces both in warm and cool side,many places to hide.
water bowl
food dish
infra red heat bulb in one corner(60w) temp in the middle of the viv is 85-95(depending on actual weather conditions,sun,rain etc)
I leave the red bulb on 24hours a day.

Bought my first leo just over 1 week ago,he is just over a month old.he seemed to settle in ok,would eat wax worms from food dish(usually give him 5 or 6 a day)

Introduced a pal for him 3 days ago.the new one is a little younger,about 3 weeks.
now they seem to get on ok,no fighting as yet,but since the new one has been in the viv,i havnt seen any of them eat??

I have started putting about 5-10 small crickets in before bedtime,i cant see them in the morning but i think they might be hiding in the cork pieces??as i saw one come out of a very small hole.
The waxies are still in the food dish!

The new one looks very small and im worried if it hasnt eaten yet!

One final question is that my leos seem to hide all the time??
I thought they were meant to be out during the daytime sitting under the heat lamp??,then hunting etc at night???

Im confused

Should i put my new leo into a seperate viv on its own for a while??

Any help is very welcome.i want the best for my leos!!

Thanks for reading

Duncan(worried first time leo owner)!!

Give them some time. Also leos are nocturnal so they will hide all day then come out at night and you might want to consider since they come out at night they probly do all there activitys while your asleep. Do you know how much they weigh if so you can keep track of there weight and see if they're losing any. good luck, Katie
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Owner of 3 Leopard Geckos, 3 Fire Belly Toads, 3 Treefrogs,
2 Bahaman Anoles and 1 Turtle "GOT-A-LUV-UM"

Thanks Katie,
I cant weigh them because i havnt handled them yet! the guy from the shop told me to let them settle in for a week or two then start handling them.

I tried a few nights ago to hold the eldest one but he tried to bite and started hissing and screeching!!I didnt want to stress him out so i left him!Is this normal?He wouldnt let me touch him.

I guess im just paranoid about these beautiful creatures,i will leave them for another week and see how it goes.

Dunc

Sounds like it is baby. Babies don't like to be handled at all and should be left alone til they are a little bigger. Yes, the behavior is normal, though some little ones are more fiesty than others. Fiesty is not bad. They will calm down when they are bigger...it is a defensive mechanism to help them survive their youth in the wild, even though they are so small...

Your welcome, Hope everything goes well for you also... you don't have to pick them up to weigh them. I just put a little box in their cage then put a lid on it when they go in it. Then i set it on the scale. A scale is always good to have. Some may be expensive but i'm sure if you shopped around you could find one for cheap. Good luck, Katie
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Owner of 3 Leopard Geckos, 3 Fire Belly Toads, 3 Treefrogs,
2 Bahaman Anoles and 1 Turtle "GOT-A-LUV-UM"

Hi There!

A few suggestions

1. Throw out the beech chips, they are not a good substrate for leos of any age. If these are under 6" long, put them on paper towels, repti-carpet, slate pieces, or other non-granular substrate (no kinds of wood ships either). After they are 6" long you can replace the paper towels with washed playsand or calcisand if you want, but there will always be some risk of impaction. Also-are you sure that is beech chips and not cedar chips? If it is decar chips, you may have a worse problem on your hands, the oil is poisonous to geckos...I think it causes neurological damage or something.

2. Your leos really need some source of under tank heat that keeps the area that they lie on when in their hides 88°-92° degrees. A heat lamp is okay in addition, but leos need that belly heat when relaxing and sleeping to digest their food probably. Your temperatures and lack of under-tank heat are most likely the cause of your problem. You can get a commercial reptile UTH that affixes to the bottom of the tank and attach it to a thermostat so you can control the temp. Or you can get a human heat pad with adjustibe temps and use that, just be sure to put it on a towl or grate that allows air flow- not directly on wood, as that may cause scorching.

3. Age is not so much a problem, but if you have two young growing leos together invariably the big one will get bigger and the small one will get stunted as the bigger one bullies or intimidates the smaller one into not eating., or wins the competition for food. You can seperate them for feeding, or you can make a temporary enclosure w/ a plastic sweater box and a heat pad, paper towels for substrate, a cottage cheese container or something similiar / cave hole cut in it, and water and foo and calcium dishes, and use that for one til they catch up in size.

4. Do you have a dish of phosphorus-free calvium in the enclosure at all times? Young leos need that or they will get MBD.

Move the heat lamp to one end of the tank to provide a temp gradient...one side should be room temp, the other side should be 85-90 degrees...it shouldn't go over 90. Leos are nocturnal and will hide during the day and come out at night. They rarely bask. I would remove the smaller leo for a few reasons. It could be that you have two male leos and they will start fighting once they mature and you will need to seperate them anyway. Also, the little one may be bossed around by the bigger one...another reason to seperate them. In addition to the cork pieces, the leos should have access to a humid hide on the warm side of the tank. If they are this young, you should remove the wood chips (the could eat some and get impacted) and place them on a sheet or two of paper towels which is safer. Good luck!!!

Cleo
1:1 leos (6 eggs cooking)

Thank you all for your replies

The substrate is quite coarse beech chips,they are not very small pieces of wood?

I dont have a dish with calcium in it in the viv,i just dust all their food with Nutrobal before feeding.i have read that a small bowl of ground up cuttlefish is ok??

I think i may have to seperate them for a while so i can be sure that the smaller one is eating well.

I like the idea for weighing them,the box trick sounds a easy way to do it and less stressfull than picking them up.

Thanks guys for all your help and ideas,let me know if you think of any more

Cheers
Duncan