Any help appreciated!!!

[xolilangel785]

Hi, I'm going to apologize in advance if this gets long-winded. I have been lurking in here for awhile but this is my first post.
I am acquiring 35 geckos from a former breeder who has no interest anymore. I am not new to leopard geckos but I am new to possibility breeding them. I have been doing tons and tons of research and unfortunately the genetics part has not quite "clicked" for me yet. I started a notebook to work through everything as far as recessive, dominant, het, etc. and I am understanding some of it but where I am a little lost is what morphs to breed.
Out of the 35 geckos I plan on selling some and keeping some for breeding and I just don't know which to keep and sell. Some of the morphs I have been able to find for sale on some websites and some I can't find at all.
I don't plan on breeding until I fully understand what to breed and the genetics.
I know not to breed albino strains to each other (bell, rainwater and tremper) because it "muddys the water" so to speak.
I know which are dominant and which are recessive but I just don't know how to apply all of that to the ones I am getting.
I'm not sure if it would help to list the morphs I am getting or if someone can kind of give me a starting point.
I appreciate any help.
Thank you in advance.

 

[warhawk]

Getting a collection would be super cool. Hopefully you can get some of his racks also. I have been learning about the different morphs also and there is a lot of info out there. Like you I'm not new to geckos but I know there is still stuff to learn about the morphs. Here is what I would do if it was me.

Ask the breeder for his records so you know what everyone is. If he doesn't have records or isn't willing to give them to you then you will have to treat every gecko as unknown genetics. The question you have to ask your self is do you want to breed geckos with unknown genetics or not, I would not but that is just me. There are way too many hidden things you can't know about if they are unknown, you might have albinos mixed in you don't know about or anything else. Not to be mean but if the breeder doesn't have records then I would think very hard about buying anything. Not trying to talk you out of buying them.

If you get and records to know what you have take a photo of each and put it on the tank with the name of the morph. That way every time you look at the morph you see the name and that will help it click in you head. I have found once you have a few geckos with known morphs it makes working out what you will get when you breed easier.


Love to see the collection if you get it.

 

[xolilangel785]

Thank you so much for the response! I got the geckos last night, along with all the racks. I do have a record of what they are.
I am working through labeling them all properly. I am just stuck with what to keep to breed and which to try to sell.
Some of the ones I got are:
Diablo blanco, snow diablo blanco, mack snow, jungle bell het radar, co dom snow aptor het raptor, emerine red stripe, bell albino, mack snow funky jungle het bell, afghan mack snow, snow white yellow bell het radar.....just to name a few.
If you have any other tips for me it would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you again!

 

[warhawk]

Congrats on getting everyone.

I would suggest you plan on keeping everyone right now. Breeding season is about 6 months away so you have time to learn what pairs will make what and figure out what you want to breed for. Keep things simple pick a male you like and learn about his morph then pick 1 or 2 females and learn about theirs. You could breed those in the 2016 season and keep the others for 2017 or later. The good news is geckos can live a long time, so if you keep a nice looking Mack snow jungle you could wait 2-3 years to breed him. That would give you enough time to learn all you need to know.

I will point out you have a mix of albino so I would think about selling one of those lines for sure. The Diablo Blanco is from the Tremper line and you have a few Bells. Keeping one albino line will make record keeping much easier. I'm staying with the Tremper lines as some of my babies have Diablo Blanco in them. Maybe you could find another breeder that would trade geckos with you just make sure you get enough back ground of them so you can breed them.