Hello, hello~
It's been a few years since I've owned leos, but since I have several tanks sitting around...(4 20gal long and 4-5 10gal tanks) ^_^ I figure I may as well work on getting a few more, and possibly breeding this time around! The last batch of geckos I owned were quite possibly my favorite pets ever, and I've had -many- pets in the last 20 years, trust me on that. This being said, I do still love the two dogs and two cats that currently live with me and my family - A 9 y/o Chihuahua named Willy, an 8 y/o Yorkshire Terrier, and a pair of female Ocicat kittens that are currently ~9 months old (we've had them since they were only -4- weeks old, yay rescue kittens!)
Anyway, I'd originally been planning on getting a bearded dragon, but I've been thinking it over and decided to simply stay with the critters that I know how to care for.
It all started back in...I want to say 2006. I'd been wanting to get a new pet, and my mother surprised me with...A gerbil. Okay, I will admit that she was adorable, but since I had to keep her cage in my room...THE NOISE. The wheel, the water bottle, ugh...We took her back to the pet store,took her cage and supplies as well, our store has a great return policy and knows us. I started looking around at the birds, small animals and reptiles displays, and saw a bunch of baby leos. At the time, our store had like...15 in a cage similar to a 20long tank. I fell for the leos instantly, and my mom agreed to get me one/the setup the same day. The clerk let me put my hand in to pick one myself, and I tried picking up one of the smallest hatchies in the tank....Well, the little bugger ran, and as I 'chased' it around the tank, one of the larger hatchies followed my hand and eventually climbed all the way up to my shoulder. ^_^ Since the little guy chose me we took him home, and I named him Hiryu. I didn't get any pictures of him from that time, but believe me, he was a cutie! We never had any issues handling him, and he literally sat on my shoulder or in my shirt pocket the entire time we were setting up his home. Standard 10gal tank, cage carpeting, a normal hide, moist hide, UTH, and a low-wattage fluorescent bulb/fixture for simple lighting (no heat).
When Hiryu was about ~2 years old, I'd upgraded him to a 20gal long tank and given him a few decorations. By this time, my nephews had been bitten by the Leo bug, and my younger nephew had gotten himself 'Baby Rei'. Gave the 10gal to him until Rei got bigger, then he got his own 20gal long tank. On a trip to the pet store a few weeks later, I noticed that their 20gal long tanks were on sale...Well, my older nephew wanted a leo as well, so we had planned on buying him one. When I went looking at the leos for sale, I melted. They had a Leusistic male, about a year old, for ~50$. My nephew didn't want him, but my mom couldn't say no to me when she saw him. We bought three 20gal long tanks (I didn't know why we bought a third one at the time), Sanzo and his supplies, then went to another shop around the corner. Bowmans is a feed/pet supply shop that has a large collection of critters for sale as well, though they usually only have 1-3 of each reptile that they sell there, and they're poorly cared for. In a 20gal tank filled with sand/with a heat lamp and only one hide, they had two hatchlings and a sub adult. This sub adult, from what I'd seen on many breeder sites, looked to be a Sunglow, and my nephew fell in love with it. 'It' was named Zen, and after letting it calm down, I was able to pick it up and....It was a female!
With four geckos in the house, you'd think my mother and my sister would say no to more. Wrong. Two months after we got Zen and Sanzo, my birthday rolled around. We still had an extra 20gal long tank, and I didn't see a reason for it...Until my mom brought home a juvenile Albino female. Five geckos. Everyone was happy, and with empty 10gal tanks...We entertained the idea of breeding when the girls were big/healthy enough.
2011 came around, and we started hunting around for an incubator, knowing that if we needed more tanks for hatchies, 10gal tanks would be easy enough to buy. Things didn't go the way we planned, though. Before we could purchase an incubator, something happened...Usually, we would buy our feeder insects (crix and mealies) from a local pet supply shop just down the road from us, since both the normal pet store and Bowmans are a good ~20 mins away. We picked up our feeders, kept them in the same way we always did, then noticed all five geckos started getting sick a few days later. They'd all had some of the new feeders, which had also started dying off faster than usual, and in greater numbers. Within two weeks, even after we stopped feeding them the new feeders and went back to the reserves of our old ones (different containers, and a small mealie colony I'd been trying to grow before feeding from), we had our first loss. Hiryu, who was always highly active and healthy, had started to perk back up, but he was the first we lost. Zen followed a few days later, then came Rei, Yuki (my albino girl), and Sanzo was the last to go. We spoke to the local vet, and to the pet supply store clerk/owner, and learned that many reptile owners in the area had lost their reps due to a contaminated feeder shipment the store had received.
Sad as it is, we haven't had leos since then. But, hopefully within the next few months, that will change! After seeing a few custom tank designs, I've decided to try my hand at making some custom rock walls for the available tanks. I'll likely have pictures of them long before I get any leos, and...If all goes at plan at the next craft show, I should have more than enough money to order some really nice geckos! (If I keep my current prices, I should have ~$1150 worth of both beaded wire and cord/thread/hemp jewelry to sell)
It's been a few years since I've owned leos, but since I have several tanks sitting around...(4 20gal long and 4-5 10gal tanks) ^_^ I figure I may as well work on getting a few more, and possibly breeding this time around! The last batch of geckos I owned were quite possibly my favorite pets ever, and I've had -many- pets in the last 20 years, trust me on that. This being said, I do still love the two dogs and two cats that currently live with me and my family - A 9 y/o Chihuahua named Willy, an 8 y/o Yorkshire Terrier, and a pair of female Ocicat kittens that are currently ~9 months old (we've had them since they were only -4- weeks old, yay rescue kittens!)
Anyway, I'd originally been planning on getting a bearded dragon, but I've been thinking it over and decided to simply stay with the critters that I know how to care for.
It all started back in...I want to say 2006. I'd been wanting to get a new pet, and my mother surprised me with...A gerbil. Okay, I will admit that she was adorable, but since I had to keep her cage in my room...THE NOISE. The wheel, the water bottle, ugh...We took her back to the pet store,took her cage and supplies as well, our store has a great return policy and knows us. I started looking around at the birds, small animals and reptiles displays, and saw a bunch of baby leos. At the time, our store had like...15 in a cage similar to a 20long tank. I fell for the leos instantly, and my mom agreed to get me one/the setup the same day. The clerk let me put my hand in to pick one myself, and I tried picking up one of the smallest hatchies in the tank....Well, the little bugger ran, and as I 'chased' it around the tank, one of the larger hatchies followed my hand and eventually climbed all the way up to my shoulder. ^_^ Since the little guy chose me we took him home, and I named him Hiryu. I didn't get any pictures of him from that time, but believe me, he was a cutie! We never had any issues handling him, and he literally sat on my shoulder or in my shirt pocket the entire time we were setting up his home. Standard 10gal tank, cage carpeting, a normal hide, moist hide, UTH, and a low-wattage fluorescent bulb/fixture for simple lighting (no heat).
When Hiryu was about ~2 years old, I'd upgraded him to a 20gal long tank and given him a few decorations. By this time, my nephews had been bitten by the Leo bug, and my younger nephew had gotten himself 'Baby Rei'. Gave the 10gal to him until Rei got bigger, then he got his own 20gal long tank. On a trip to the pet store a few weeks later, I noticed that their 20gal long tanks were on sale...Well, my older nephew wanted a leo as well, so we had planned on buying him one. When I went looking at the leos for sale, I melted. They had a Leusistic male, about a year old, for ~50$. My nephew didn't want him, but my mom couldn't say no to me when she saw him. We bought three 20gal long tanks (I didn't know why we bought a third one at the time), Sanzo and his supplies, then went to another shop around the corner. Bowmans is a feed/pet supply shop that has a large collection of critters for sale as well, though they usually only have 1-3 of each reptile that they sell there, and they're poorly cared for. In a 20gal tank filled with sand/with a heat lamp and only one hide, they had two hatchlings and a sub adult. This sub adult, from what I'd seen on many breeder sites, looked to be a Sunglow, and my nephew fell in love with it. 'It' was named Zen, and after letting it calm down, I was able to pick it up and....It was a female!
With four geckos in the house, you'd think my mother and my sister would say no to more. Wrong. Two months after we got Zen and Sanzo, my birthday rolled around. We still had an extra 20gal long tank, and I didn't see a reason for it...Until my mom brought home a juvenile Albino female. Five geckos. Everyone was happy, and with empty 10gal tanks...We entertained the idea of breeding when the girls were big/healthy enough.
2011 came around, and we started hunting around for an incubator, knowing that if we needed more tanks for hatchies, 10gal tanks would be easy enough to buy. Things didn't go the way we planned, though. Before we could purchase an incubator, something happened...Usually, we would buy our feeder insects (crix and mealies) from a local pet supply shop just down the road from us, since both the normal pet store and Bowmans are a good ~20 mins away. We picked up our feeders, kept them in the same way we always did, then noticed all five geckos started getting sick a few days later. They'd all had some of the new feeders, which had also started dying off faster than usual, and in greater numbers. Within two weeks, even after we stopped feeding them the new feeders and went back to the reserves of our old ones (different containers, and a small mealie colony I'd been trying to grow before feeding from), we had our first loss. Hiryu, who was always highly active and healthy, had started to perk back up, but he was the first we lost. Zen followed a few days later, then came Rei, Yuki (my albino girl), and Sanzo was the last to go. We spoke to the local vet, and to the pet supply store clerk/owner, and learned that many reptile owners in the area had lost their reps due to a contaminated feeder shipment the store had received.
Sad as it is, we haven't had leos since then. But, hopefully within the next few months, that will change! After seeing a few custom tank designs, I've decided to try my hand at making some custom rock walls for the available tanks. I'll likely have pictures of them long before I get any leos, and...If all goes at plan at the next craft show, I should have more than enough money to order some really nice geckos! (If I keep my current prices, I should have ~$1150 worth of both beaded wire and cord/thread/hemp jewelry to sell)
^_^ Anyway...I'm happy to be here, and hope I'll have things to show off soon! Until then, enjoy this picture of Hiryu, the palm-sitting Gecko. (RIP little guy.)
