Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is an update from a post below inquiring about housing males together. I replied with:

I have always kept my males separate. I, like you, have read it all over that they will fight. I have always had the understanding that that is the way it is with many geckos I have kept in the past. It makes complete sense too. If it is not a dominancy dispute, it would be a territorial or a "Right to court" dispute.

My friend has two different enclosures with a pair in each enclosure. Both pairs happen to be males. Both of the pairs have grown together. On pair is adolescent while the other pair is mature. The adolescent pair lives in a 15 gallon and the mature pair lives in a 55 planted terrarium. To this day, he has not had any fights at all. The mature pair is a year and a half old and the adolescents are almost a year.

He is aware that there may be a day where he needs to separate them if he sees any aggression.

Three weeks ago, I gave him my female to pair up with one of his mature males. I had him put her in the 55 gallon and had him take out the male who I did not want her to breed with and he is keeping him in a separate enclosure for the time being. I told him before we started this project that there was a possibility that after we do this, we may be crossing a point of no return as far as putting the males back together.

Why? Because not only will one male learn to breed but there after he may possibly learn why he needs to be territorial…to court of course. OR when he introduces the virgin male back into the enclosure when I take my female back, the mere scent of a previous presence of a female may habitually trigger aggression. My hunch is that these two males will not be able to co-exist in the same enclosure despite the fact that it is a well planted 55 or the fact that they grew up together. Do you think they will really remember each other???? I do not know that they will.

I will post the outcome in 3 more weeks after I bring my girl home. It should be interesting to see what happens.

I for one have done/seen things in the past that defied husbandry. But then again, I have seen consequences from defying rules. I personally believe in this case that it is best to keep the males separated. A vast majority of the wild males studied in New Caledonia are tail-less believed to be due to territory/ courtship disputes. It isn’t just tail loss but in an enclosure where they have limited space to escape, that stress and constant bullying would lead to a decline in feeding and eventually a decline in health.

I will always keep my males separate, regardless of my friend’s re-introduction outcome. I would not even want to risk the loss of their tails.

Please realize this is just my insight/opinion. Hope this helps.

Quick recap and the outcome.

Both males grew together in the same enclosure. They were later upgraded to a heavily planted and cork barked riddled 55 gallon. No aggression had ever been witnessed.

In January, one was taken out of the enclosure and the female was introduced into the 55. She stayed in the enclosure for a little over a month with the single male. Pre-mating behavior was witnessed but copulation was never seen.

After 6 weeks, both male and female were taken out of the enclosure and were put in a smaller enclosure with attempts to witness copulation.

The lone male who was not part of the breeding project was reintroduced to his 55 gallon enclosure and had the run of the place for 2 weeks.

Under supervision, we re-introduced the male into the 55 gallon enclosure that was also housing the male that he had matured with. The introduction happened in the middle of the day and the male who currently occupied the enclosure was no where to be seen. In less than 5 minutes, the occupying male materialized out of nowhere and was fully aware of the presence of the other male. He was very confident in his moves and was licking everything though the newly introduced male had not journeyed more than 5 inches from where he was placed upon introduction. They were a good 15 inches from each other and both of them were on the defense.

What happened next all happened in a matter of seconds. I am not sure which of the two made the first move but 15 inches closed quickly. They collided and their jaws were attached to each other as they rolled around with their tails twisting about. I reached in to separate them. The "giant hand from the sky" caused them to let go of each other and one of them retreated to the left and the other went to the far right side of the 55 long where he climbed to the highest point. The gecko that ran to the left did the same, climbed to the highest point and peered to the right. Both of them were perched on opposite ends of the 55 on pieces of cork bark looking back in each others direction. They were also flamed up and displaying some incredible intensity of their colors.

At first we were nearly certain that it was just coincidental that they were looking in each others direction. They were 48 inches from each other…..though they were in clear view of each other their pupils were small as the day lamps were illuminating the 55 gallon. Could they really see each other? Then, the gecko on the left began to move and the gecko on the right reacted as they both started advancing on each other along the cork ledge that runs the top of the enclosure. We were completely taken at the amount of aggression these two had as they advanced on each other once again.

Before they could get to each other, I reached in and got a hold of one of them as he aggressively returned the favor of getting a hold of me. I placed him into a critter carrier as my friend began contemplating on how fast he could construct another enclosure. It was inevitable that despite the fact these two males grew from hatchlings to adulthood together, they will never be safely housed with each other ever again.

I really felt bad for my friend because he had to separate the two but I believe that this would have been inevitable. It seems pretty evident that we speeded the process up with using one of the males in a breeding project and exposed a virgin male to an enclosure once inhabited with a breeding female.

Just an FYI, both males are doing fine and none of them were hurt in their brief scuffle. Interesting enough, even though this took place nearly 2 weeks ago, the male he used in the breeding program is still a little aggressive as he bit my friend last weekend while being handled gently. I think he will eventually tame down in time though.

Hope this experience was of some value to those of you who wondered. It certainly was for us!

Severa

Well, as you said, not a terribly surprising outcome; I'm glad no one was permanently harmed, at least. I wonder if the outcome would be the same with just separating them for a few weeks and then reintroducing. Was it the fact that one of them got to breed, or that they didn't remember each other and/or were just no longer used to each other's presence? I guess it's something unlikely to be tested, as I'm sure your friend doesn't want to have to separate his other pair if he can avoid it, but the thought occurred to me.
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear

Thats a good point...that if they would have been like this if they were just seperated and breeding wasn't a factor. The virgin gecko male took to defense first upon the introduction. The male that had bred reacted and anticipated what was going to happen.

What amazed me was that the virgin KNEW right off hand that it was a male. He was 15 inches from him and knew! He smelled him in the air. He wasn't smelling places the male had been because he barely moved from the spot we placed him.

When I introduced my females to a male for the first time....completely different reactions even when they are a distance from each other. The males lick and smell and have a pre-conceived idea even before going up to them as to what sex they are. Call me naïve but I think this instinct is absolutely amazing. I simply don't give them enough credit!

Severa

>>What amazed me was that . . . [they] have a pre-conceived idea even before going up to them as to what sex they are. Call me naïve but I think this instinct is absolutely amazing. I simply don't give them enough credit!

wish i had that instinct...it would come in handy with some people! LOL
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4.1 snakes, 4.6.1 crested geckos, 0.1 gargoyle gecko, 0.0.2 red-eyed tree frogs, 2.0 devon rex cats, 1.0 betta, 0.1 sun conure, 1.0 lovebird

honestly id say it could be done. if given a LARGE number of females, around 15 females to the 2 males in a tank id say has to be over 120 gallons, it could possibly be done. it all geckos were same size and closely monitored of course.

>>honestly id say it could be done. if given a LARGE number of females, around 15 females to the 2 males in a tank id say has to be over 120 gallons, it could possibly be done. it all geckos were same size and closely monitored of course.

17 geckos in one tank? No thanks! Think about how much poop that would be and just back away from this idea!
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear