Hoping to breed, need some info first

[swinginuttersgrrl]

At present I have two confirmed female geckos housed in separate tanks (although the tanks are set up identically...) I have had both for about a year and a half and got them as juveniles, though one is estimated about 4-6 months older than the other. The one in my avatar is 56g at last weighing and the other one is 48g. I would like to obtain a male and try my hand at breeding but space is somewhat of a factor and my husband keeps pushing me to combine the two females and put the male in the other tank. Eventually I would like to expand the outfit further, and do have a larger tank freeing up in the very near future, but what is a good set up? Can I combine the females? or should I just try to get a sub-adult male or two to grow out and eventually just keep them as male female pairs? And if I do combine the females is there anything special I have to do to do it? or do I just clean out the tank, rearrange and toss them in together and just be observant to make sure they're doing ok?
I mention that space may be a factor only because the deal originally was that they stay out of the way and right now the two tanks (and the extra one that will be freeing up when the baby beardies move to a bigger tank) are in out of the way places, but husband keeps 'making space' for more snakes, so I'm sure I can find a way to 'make space' for more lizards. fair is fair right?
help is greatly appreciated as I'm tired of my husband pushing me to do this without really knowing if its the right thing to do.
Thanks in advance!
~K

 

[Tony C]

Females can usually be housed together, but there are always variations in individual temperament, so watch them closely if you do.

 

[Mel&Keith]

One more space issue you may want to think about is how much space the babies will take up. 2 females can easily produce 20 babies (or more). Since each clutch is typically a month apart you will not be able to house all of the babies together. Some people house clutchmates together but even doing that, you may still need 10+ separate houses for babies. Just something to think about beforehand!

 

[swinginuttersgrrl]

Thanks! I know babies will take up a lot of space, but (and this is going to sound really weird) we're more prepared for that because of the set up he's planning to house them in: mr. fix it is building shoebox racks for his herp room, once we start breeding he wants to become involved in the geckos, typical male only interested in procreation... Like I said, I'll "make" space simply because he's always making space for more snakes, just this morning I "made space" for a display beardie tank, these things work out, I really just needed to know that as long as they don't start fighting that the girls can just be plopped in together and monitored.
Cheers!
~K

 

[acpart]

How about if you clean the target tank thoroughly and then put the 2 females in together for a trial. Give them a few weeks and see how they're doing together. If all goes well, you can proceed with a male and go to phase 2, and if not, you can re-evaluate.

ALiza