Heading to a reptile show this weekend...Need advice

So me and my son are planning on heading to the St. Louis Reptile show this coming Sunday(March 9th) and were looking to buy 2-3 leopard geckos. I would eventually like to breed these guys/gals down the road but I'm unsure of a few things someone with more experience may be able to help with.

First, I'm unsure If I should get more males then females or vise versa. I would assume that If I were to get three geckos that getting a male and two females would be best.

Second, If I do get two females and one male should I spend more money on the male to get a nicer morph? Or put more into the females? Mind you guys that I'm not shooting for super expensive morphs but would like to get something nice.

Third, can you guys suggest a decent pair to start with. I enjoy a lot of the morphs especially jungles, bandits, mack snows, tangerines, and w/y's to name a few. I would ideally like to keep the lines as pure as possible. Also keeping it single HETs and overall hatching nice clean geckos.

In the end breeding these geckos would be for the enjoyment and for a great learning experience for my children to see something spectacular like watching something go from an egg to a living breathing thing. I'm super excited about this weekend and hope to get some great looking geckos with great background information from solid breeders. Thanks guys:main_thumbsup:

-Gregory

Getting 1 male and 2 females sounds like a good idea.
Spend as much as you find reasonable for geckos of a decent size in good health.
GO to the website of the expo and see if there's a vendor list. If so, prepare by checking them out on the web (you can check their reputations by going to faunaclassified.com and checking out the BOard of Inquiry).
Go through the whole show when you get there, make note of geckos you're interested in and then go back and pick out the ones that seem to be the best choices for a reasonable price.
Avoid situations where a vendor has many different species and only 1-2 leopard geckos that they don't know anything about (but usually got them in trade and are now trying to move them)
Avoid vendors with tons of tiny baby geckos for $10 each. The geckos are usually not big enough to be well established and are a risky purchase
Avoid vendors who can't reliably identify the morphs of the leos they have and who can't give you gentic background information.

Personally, I don't give advice about what morphs to get. You have to think about what you want to produce, understand the genetics and then get something that will give you that within a few generations. A model for how to do this is in my article for Gecko Time:

Guide to Breeding Leopard Geckos on a Small Scale | Gecko Time

Aliza

If the male you get is tremper the girls can't be bells or rain waters.
I think lzrdgrl sells at that expo sometimes.

Thanks for the fast response Aliza! Ive already been in contact with the host of the actual show and a vendor(Saurian enterprise) about leopard geckos they may be bringing. Also I believe a poster on the forums here may be there..Lizardgirl or something. Ive heard she is a reputable/reliable breeder.

Should the breeder have a decent amount of information about the geckos in question? Morphs of parents, DOB, etc? I'm assuming the geckos wont come with a certificate or anything? I'm not really sure what comes along with buying from a good breeder and what I should be expecting.

Also in regards to what morphs I'm more looking for some advice on a solid pair. I came across a thread awhile back talking about kids mucking up the gene pool with countless common mistakes about breeding. People just throwing pairs together for the sake of breeding. If I do breed the geckos and I do emphasize IF, I want to do it right and produce quality geckos.

Also thanks for all the other good tips. I'm hoping me and my son have a great day come Sunday

Oh OK Lemmy. Yeah, now to think about it I do remember reading that crossing any of the albinos together isn't desired or advised.

I would look for two main things. 1.) healthy animals that you LOVE and want to see more of 2.) a friendly breeder who is patient, answers your questions, goes beyond the simple or easy answer to your questions to help you learn, seems knowledgeable, and provides you wiith contact info so you can ask questions you might have along the way. I can't tell you how much of a help the breeders I've bought from have been and I have learned a TON through emails and discussions with them. I've also found that sometimes some of the things I learned stirred up new questions about the animals I bought that only the breeder could answer.

If you know the breeders that will be there before going or have a smart phone so you can look things up at the show, it is never a bad idea to check out whether a big breeder has a rating on faunaclassifieds.com or here on Gecko Forums or ask for references before buying.

I think a 1.2 group would also be a good idea but I would make sure you can house the animals seperately from the start. If you're buying from different breeders you'll want to quarantine the animals in separate cages for 30-90 days before introducing them. There's always the chance they may not get along in the same enclosure (especially males and females!) So having a backup for the male is essential. In my experience bandits/bolds/snows seem to be the most reasonably priced and are my favorites to work with. Each baby has a totally unique look and I love that it's always a surprise when an egg hatches. They tend to be more reasonably priced than some of the fancy tangerines and albinos out there as well. All in all it comes down to exactly what you like and what you find available at the show.

Good luck and can't wait to see pictures of what you find!!

Thanks Lisa for information. Ill be sure to take all of it into account when I go this coming weekend.

Also I will most likely post pictures of the geckos and the enclosures themselves so keep an eye out :main_thumbsup:

Here is one of the geckos I got from the show...kind of testing image size

I love the orange and the clean tail.

ALiza

Thanks! I think she is amazing. I wish she would warm up to me a bit more but time will tell