Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I havent got the a gecko yet but I would like too and I want to know what I am doing first. I have a few questions.

1. What temp heat do they need??
2. Do they need humidity?? What percentage??
3. Can they climb up trees and bushes??
4. How often do I feed the lepard? (I am giving it pinky mice and crickets most likely)

You can find this information easily on a bunch of websites-

First and foremost, mice are going to get expensive (and are full of fat) and aren't necessary. Live crickets, mealworms, superworms, very light on the waxworms (fatty as well-optional) and make sure they are either gut loaded or calcium (without vitamin d3) dusted at least. Crickets are the easiest for them to digest.

The warm side of the enclosure is no hotter than 86-90. They usually don't need a basking light- none of mine do. I only have a heat pad under the substrate that works fine.

I use coconut fiber (Eco Earth) but paper towels are just as good.

If you're serious about owning reptiles, you need to research before you buy- some require UV lighting and special diets. Leopard geckos are easy and live for long amounts of time but you have to do it right. Just google leopard geckos or leopard gecko care and you'll find numerous sources.

Link

Sorry the link in my last post is a link to a good care site. Cheers (:

Thank you for advice. I have done tons of research and you never know because everywhere says different things, thats why i came from second opinions and advice.

To get you started, the answers to your questions are...
1) you want a 90 degree hot spot on an extreme side of an enclosure. The oppostie side will be room temperature. Be careful in the winter if your ambient room temperature gets down into the 60's.
2) You want to keep the enclosure dry for the most part, but most keepers have a "moist hide" on the cool side of the enclosure to aid in shedding. You can keep damp sphagnum moss in the hide box which can be a simple as a ziploc tupperware large enough for the gecko to comfortably relax in.
3) Climbing is risky for leopard geckos. They can fall and hurt themselves and there's always the risk of a climbing utensil falling over and injuring the gecko. Keep cage decor simple. Crickets will have less places to hide from the gecko.
4) If you prefer to feed crickets and pinky mice only feed 1 newborn pinky mouse a week. Only feed pinky mice to geckos large enough to swallow one whole ie, adults. Feed crickets as often as they're eaten. Start with 5 a day and if they eat them all give them 6 or 7. Try to avoid crickets sticking around in the enclosure where they might eat the geckos poop and then in turn get the gecko sick when they finally get eaten.

Hope this helps!

Thank you so much for your help

This is a 3ft Neodesha Plastics cage - about 34 wide by 18 deep. There are 2 leos in there.

Heat strip (3-inch wide Flexwatt) is run the length of the cage along the bottom rear and attaches with Velcro. Cage is elevated using felt pads - the heavy duty ones - so as to have the heater clear the floor. Temp is 85 deg over the heater. In Winter, I hang a low watt incandescent in there to help keep the air temps above 65 deg.

Hides are made from pink foam insulation sheet. I cut pieces, glued them with low-temp hot glue, and painted with low-VOC water-based paint. They love these hides. And they are lightweight and cannot hurt them.

The two leos tend to stay apart. One is female, the other I'm not sure yet, but they spend most of the time hiding in their own area, not together. I even feed them in separate dishes.

I use packaging paper as substrate, which is probably unprinted newspaper going by the feel and weight of it. You can use coir fiber if you want if feeding in dishes, and I may go back to that myself, but for now I am using this paper, and they are happy and feed very well.

Oh and there are two containers on the cool side with holes in the lids. Filled with moist coir fiber. The geckos do use these on occasion, especially at shed time.