advise?

[MHBass8]

hey guys, my buddy breads leopard geckos and showed me this website. thought I'd try it out.
So bought a crested gecko from petco more than a year ago and than bought another cause I felt bad it didn't have a tail. I thought they were two females.... learned very quickly I was wrong. I know have 5 hatch-lings that are almost a year old. I have 2 in plastic critter keepers and than i split the other 3 up in a 10 gal with dividers. I would like to sell them soon and maybe go into business with my friend.
The babies have egg crates which are for climbing and hiding and plastic leaves in them. For the mother i added pieces of wood for climbing but she usually stays on the ground. I feed them crested gecko diet and i give the mother 1 cricket a day. while with the babies I'm trying mealworms for them.
I also spray them down two times a day and i have a reptifogger that i trade off between cages.
I'd love some advise on how I'm doing with them and I may try to add pics cause I'm trying to figure out what morphs they are.

 

[acpart]

I only have 1 crestie and am no expert but in my opinion if they're eating and pooping, they're probably OK. If you have more than 1 baby in a section, just watch that they don't nip each other's tails. I'm sure you'll hear from some of the more experienced crestie breeders eventually.

ALiza

 

[darkridder]

No quite hatchlings if they are a year old...lol they are year old geckos!

Mealworms are not exactly the most nutritional item you could feed these guys. If youre going to feed insects, go with 3-4 small crickets once a week. And the same with the mother, offer her about 4-6 in one sitting instead of daily. The problem with daily is that she may not eat as much CGD as she should be as a portion of her stomach space is now being host to the cricket. So instead just offer her once a week a meal of 4-6 crickets then CGD the rest of the week. This might be reason if your geckos are still so small and your calling them hatchlings, they are not getting enough good nutrition in them. Although not a fast growing species, and they can vary widly, normally a year old gecko can range from about 10-20g, if yours are smaller than that, it is probably a good indication they are not getting a whole lot of protein in their diet, or are choosing to eat one food item over the other (ie filling up on mealworms and not getting enough CGD).

Normally I house my babies in clutches, unless for some reason that 1 only one baby hatched or one good egg, or two I see stress happening. My babies are housed in various setups ranging from kk's, storage containers, tanks, and exoterras.

As for morphs...I need pics as descriptions never work out well!

 

[MHBass8]

No quite hatchlings if they are a year old...lol they are year old geckos!

Mealworms are not exactly the most nutritional item you could feed these guys. If youre going to feed insects, go with 3-4 small crickets once a week. And the same with the mother, offer her about 4-6 in one sitting instead of daily. The problem with daily is that she may not eat as much CGD as she should be as a portion of her stomach space is now being host to the cricket. So instead just offer her once a week a meal of 4-6 crickets then CGD the rest of the week. This might be reason if your geckos are still so small and your calling them hatchlings, they are not getting enough good nutrition in them. Although not a fast growing species, and they can vary widly, normally a year old gecko can range from about 10-20g, if yours are smaller than that, it is probably a good indication they are not getting a whole lot of protein in their diet, or are choosing to eat one food item over the other (ie filling up on mealworms and not getting enough CGD).

Normally I house my babies in clutches, unless for some reason that 1 only one baby hatched or one good egg, or two I see stress happening. My babies are housed in various setups ranging from kk's, storage containers, tanks, and exoterras.

As for morphs...I need pics as descriptions never work out well!

Thank you guys so much and I weighed them yesterday and the year old geckos are around 4gs and I know that's very underweight, also the mother is 74g which I think is because shes a breading female. I will get right on feeding the babies 4 crickets once a week to get them big and healthy. Do you think that size of the year olds could be caused by their terrariums? For the pictures ill try and get some good ones on here soon.

 

[darkridder]

74g is rather large for these guys, and even when not fed alot of insects they can get over weight off of CGD alone. Most of females tend to be around 40-54g so 74g is pretty darn big. She could simply just be larger bodied, but who knows.

The babies are small more than likely from not enough insects, usually they will grow fairly large regardless. Reasons for slow growth can be cooler temps causing them not to eat alot, an insect free diet, or genetically speaking they could be slow growers (just as some humans can be also). However I do a mostly insect free diet and I have some geckos that are 5g and 4-6 months of age, I have others that are 6 months and they are 8g, so sometime some are just pre-dispositioned to grow more quickly. But usually you keep babies in about 2 gallons or less when they are smaller anyways. I would not house 2 individuals in it up to 10g, but a single individual can be in roughly 2 gallons until 10g, then moved into a 10 gallon tank each, then once at 20g they move into their final home.

What are your temps like in your bedroom?

 

[MHBass8]

I usually have the temp at around 70. it will go up to around 73 and can go down to 68 at night but I up the red night lights on their cages. and sometimes switch to a day bulb in the winter.
I have started feeding them 4 crickets each. I put each young gecko into a small empty critter keeper so I could monitor if they eat them or not. When they do I transition another gecko in. hopefully i can get them to a nice 14gs as soon as I can.