Hi, we are pretty brand new to leos and we have a problem! I got a "breeding colony" of leos in trade for bearded dragons. We got 10 leos, 7 of which turned out to be males.
One of the females is our current problem. Rita is a high yellow normal, pretty girl, she was agreed to be female by three local leo breeders.
When we got them, we placed Rita and another female in a big tank with the male (since they were all of the same breeding colony and supposedly proven) I never saw any breeding activity, in fact the only thing I saw was the male biting Rita and barking at her. After a while, we found a big open raw slice on Ritas tail, we assumed she had been bitten badly, not sure by whom, (probably the male), so we separated her out to heal. Around the same time the other female started to loose weight so she was separated out as well and placed with Rita, she continued to deteriorate until we separated her out completely (she's better now)
Meanwhile we had two juvies in a tank together that got along very well, never had any problems. It was determined that the smaller of the two was a male eventually so we separated them out. Rita was looking good, and the other female had grown up, so we placed her and the other female together.
After a while we noticed white things on Ritas head, the more I looked at them, the more I thought bite marks. Then yesterday I noticed a scab, and she had a bloody claw, and tail as well. There are no marks on the other female. I sat and watched the two for a while, Rita stalked up to Dicey and vibrated her tail. So we separated them out again assuming they were fighting. I looked Rita over again and noticed her pores are bigger and looking waxy, but she has no hemipene bulges. She also has a wide head. My first thought is I have a female that was supposed to be temperature sexed as a male? What do they call them, hot females or something?
So my question is what the heck is going on here? Rita is right smack dab in the middle of every problem we have had so far. Our male obviously did not like her, (he was ok with the other female), she keeps getting hurt with other geckos that do not have a history of fighting with each other, is it silly to assume she is picking fights and keeps on loosing? We wanted to breed her eventually!
ACK!
HELP!
Sarah
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FireDrake Exotics
www.FireAndLilac.com
