Leopard Gecko Breeding

[The Bearded Derek]

I've been searching everywhere on how to breed my gecko but I couldn't find much info without a problem.

I was told my gecko was Temp sexed as a male and at about 3 months or so I should be able to tell if he is a boy or girl and I could breed them at 6-12 months old. Problem is I don't know how old he is. I bought him at a Repticon here in Florida and he seemed to be a Juvenile and didnt have his hatchling colors. Currently he's about 6 inches long, I think that might help but I don't know :main_huh: (I can post a picture of him if it helps)

I've read that my gecko has to be about 50 grams (I don't know if that only matters for females) problem is I don't know where to buy a scale for that.

When I got him, the breeder told me to only put more than 1 female, at least like 2-4. She said if I put just 1 female, she can overbreed and die. Is that true?

Other than that I've read everything else, the possible problems Like Dystocia, What should I expect, the amount of calcium and vitamins, how healthy it has to be, etc.

 

[acpart]

I googled "leopard gecko breeding" and found tons of stuff.

Staples probably has an inexpensive gram scale

If you keep a male and female gecko separated and put the male in for breeding (and then take him out once you think he's bred) then you can have just 1 female and a male and she won't get overbred.

Before you breed, spend some time taking care of the gecko(s) you have. Remember that there are expenses involved including: incubator, food and housing for babies, vet visits if someone gets sick. Be sure you have the resources for this (money and time) and that if you don't, your parents are on board to help out.

Aliza

 

[Neon Aurora]

I would keep googling. There is tons on info out there. It would be hard for people here to explain to you everything you need to know.

Acpart gave you good answers, I just wanted to add that I would definitely start with just 1 female housed separately. Only put them together for breeding. Having 2-4 females in your first season might be unwise. Each female can lay around 8 to 10 clutches, and each clutch has two eggs. You might end up with more babies you can handle.

 

[The Bearded Derek]

Thanks for information and advice, but before I even think about breeding I do know I have to check how old he is, how much he weighs, and gender.
Problem is they never told me his age so I don't know. Currently he's about 6 inches (I tried measuring with a ruler )

 

[Neon Aurora]

He looks pretty young. He even still has his bands a little, and his spots are just starting to come in. I'd say 3-4 months old, give or take. It might still be a little early to know his/her gender for sure yet. I've had males that didn't show until about 9 months old.

He's pretty small, I doubt you'll be able to breed him this season. He'll be ready by next for sure, though.

 

[The Bearded Derek]

Thanks for the reply, when we got him at Repticon on March 16, he was about 4 inches long, so my best guess was that he could be 3 and a half months old.

Since i'm only 15, I have a lot of time on my hands, so I'll get 2 females when he's ready. Is there an accurate morph Calculator? I've seen like 2 or 3 but I don't know which is best. I've tried one of them but it didn't have Hi Yellow in it which he^ is :/

 

[Neon Aurora]

High Yellow isn't the same type of morph as say albino or mack snow. It isn't dominant nor recessive. High yellows are made by selectively breeding two normal geckos together that just show brighter yellow than other normals. If you want to keep the high yellow trait in your babies, you'll have to breed him to another high yellow. Otherwise, it'll slowly fade away. But I'm guessing you'll be dealing with some recessive traits later in your projects, so if you wanted to make albinos or patternless or anything than the high yellow trait would disappear anyways. That's why high yellow isn't on a gene calculator; you can't trace the brighter yellow pigment to one specific gene that is either dominant or recessive. It's more complicated than that and won't transfer over well without the female having the same genes for bright yellow.

Can I ask what morph you're after making in your breeding project?

And keep in mind if you want to start with more than one female, you're going to have quite a few babies on your hands. Make sure you have places to keep them and food to feed them, and money for everything. I'm 19 and just getting into the whole thing but I'm personally just starting with 1 female because I don't want to become overwhelmed. I want to test the waters and see if I can successfully find a market to sell the babies. I'm not saying you shouldn't start with more than 1 female, all I'm saying is you should definitely be prepared for the costs and the number of babies you'll end up with.

 

[The Bearded Derek]

Alright, thanks for the advice, if that's case, maybe I should just get 1 female.

As mates for him, If I ever get 2 or 3, I just want one of the females to be a Super Snow, 2nd one can be a Tremper, 3rd maybe a Bold or Red stripe (If I get just 1, I'll get the bold or red stripe). As for hatchlings, I don't mind the morph, I don't really have a specific target. I'd go for any that could be pretty, don't mind the color or pattern.

I've also heard the older the gecko is, the more expensive it should be. Why is that? (I'm used to it being the opposite )

As for the Calculator, High Yellows would Be considered "Wild Type"?
Also just noticed bold and red stripe aren't there either, those aren't real morphs either? Or do they have another name?

 

[Neon Aurora]

Well if you're not after anything in particular, than that's fine. Just make sure you know what is generally frowned when breeding, such as breeding two different strains of albinos together. And keep track of our genes.

Usually hatchlings are cheaper than adults for a few reasons. You can't breed them right away and you can't 100% guarantee the sex. But generally, after the gecko passes 1 year of age, it's the same price as any adult. Your price is mostly going to to depend on morph, quality, and sex(females are sometimes more expensive than males, but not by much).

Yes, high yellow would be considered wild type. High yellow acts as a regular dominant normal(or wild type) gene. Bold stripe and red stripe are similar to high yellow, but a little different. High yellow is line-bred, meaning geckos who were brighter yellow were selectively bred together to keep producing offspring with brighter yellow. Bold stripe and red stripe are line-bred traits as well(Often called polygenic), but a lot of people say they act like recessive traits(not really proven, just what some people say). Since they're line-bred, a calculator wouldn't be able to accurately tell you what you would get. The amount of striping can differ between geckos. If you breed a stripe with a non-stripe, you might end up with kind of a messy stripe. I'm sure you could straighten it out by breeding it back to a stripe, but I personally think the polygenic genes are tricky for beginners. If you started with a mack snow instead, half of your babies would be mack snows(since mack snow with a co-dominant trait) and half normals(approximately half, anyways). If you started with a stripe, I'm not entirely sure what you would end up with. If you start with a tremper albino, you'll end up with normals all het for tremper albino, since albino is a recessive trait.

Sorry if that's a little confusing. Feel free to ask more questions. =)

 

[The Bearded Derek]

Nah, it's alright, I managed to understand the majority of it, (Just yesterday I was keeping notes of genetics like HETs, Phenotypes, etc) well if the babies will be HET for trempersr, than I'll just get a simple Tangerine or a Tangerine HET sunglow. Would it come out good to breed a High Yellow and Tangerine?

 

[Neon Aurora]

Tangerine and high yellow are both line-bred traits. I really have no experience with line-bred traits so I don't know for sure what you'd end up with. Probably slightly more yellow tangerines. You'd probably also have reduced spotting, since tangerines usually are hypos or super hypos. Your male might end up being a hypo as well, you'll have to wait and see. If you breed him with a tangerine het sunglow than you'll end up with something similar but they'll be 50% het for tremper, meaning that only half of them with carry the het and you won't know which ones.

I was in a similar boat before this season. I had one male and had to decide on a female for him. I can recommend a few ideas for you based on what I think is fun in you first season. If you're planning to breed for more than one season, I think recessive genes are really fun to work with. Your first season you would produce normals het for your recessive gene, but then the next season you could produce animals that express the recessive gene you started with. There's tons of cool recessive genes out there. Different albinos, patternless, blizzards, etc. and all kinds of combinations of double recessives and triple recessives.

If I were in your spot, I would get a mack snow homozygous for some type of recesive gene. Any recessive gene would be fine, whichever strain you like the best. Than you would end up with half of your babies normal het for albino and half mack snows het for your recessive gene. Than the next season, you could breed the mack snows together and end up with a few super snows who express your recessive gene. And if you want to keep going from there, you got some pretty good animals you could start working more genes into. You could introduce a stripe and start line breeding to produce pretty snow stripes, or you could work in an eclipse or marble-eye gene. There are tons of options. Of course, this is just one of them. You could start with a completely different female and still have just as many options. It's just an idea. Personally I think starting with only line-bred traits can be tricky.

 

[The Bearded Derek]

Alright, if it is tricky, is there any pretty ones that aren't line breed and not too expensive? (The one that buys the geckos and their supplies would be my sister, I just take care of them) We're on a budget for buying a gecko, one that would be ready to breed (Ready to breed or almost) but less than $125 per gecko. I might get a mack snow but as a juvenile for to be cheap enough.

 

[Neon Aurora]

Mack snows are always good places to start in my opinion. Being a co-dominant gene makes it really fun and easy to work with. You could probably get a mack snow for under a hundred and a mack snow het something for near a hundred.

Since your male is still pretty young, you could get a juvenile female and she would be ready by next season, as would your male.

 

[The Bearded Derek]

Just one more question. When I breed them, if some of them happen to be really pretty, I plan to keep them, but what I wanna know is that I've been told Leopard gecko Males are really territorial and would not allow another male in its terrarium. What if one of the hatchlings turns out to be a male and grows up along with its Parents, would the father still fight him?

 

[Neon Aurora]

Males are very territorial and will definitely fight to the death with another male, and I would really not recommend allowing a hatchling to share a tank with its parents for any period of time regardless of gender. The parents will likely kill it when it's just a baby. Hatchlings should have their own enclosures. It's also not normally recommended to keep a male and female together, as the male will constantly try to mate the female during breeding season and seriously stress her out, which could be pretty harmful to her when she's gravid.

 

[The Bearded Derek]

Well if that's the case, I have 2 more questions (I'm full of questions )

We plan to make a Custom tank for him (Currently he has a small, 20 gallon fish tank that we had used before for fish but they died) his new tank would be about 4 feet long, 1.5 feet tall, 1.1 feet wide, custom opening front doors, and a top opening lid. If I can't have both females in there for too long, would it be better to have them in a separate tank, or in the same tank yet divided in the middle with a non-transparent wall? I was told I can have males, females, and even it's offspring together to form a colony but I don't know.

When the offspring hatch and are ready for sale, what should I start off with? Craigslist, advertise here, or make my own little website? I highly doubt i'll ship, I think i'll just be a local breeder here in Miami, Florida

 

[Neon Aurora]

Oh, well if you want to keep two females with a male that's usually fine. It's just not recommended to keep one male and one female together. Definitely in a tank that large you could house them all. Just make sure you have sever hides. Each animal should be able to hide away from the others. In a tank that large, you shouldn't have a problem having 3 of each type of hide.

To form a colony, these are basically the rules:
No more than 1 male, ever, for any reason
At least 2 females
All animals must be of similar size
Have another enclosure available, as some animals become stressed when housed with others and stop eating. Remember leopard geckos are NOT social, and will not form colonies in nature
Have enough of each type of hide for each animal to be where they need to be (Warm, cool, moist)
Monitor closely when feeding, as sometimes one animal will bully the others and take all the food
Do NOT house offspring with the adults, ever.

All in all, a colony consisting of one male and at least two females is entirely possible, but it takes closer monitoring and you have to be willing to separate them and house separately if they start fighting or one becomes too stressed.

When the offspring are ready, you should probably start with everything you can find. Finding a market can be difficult, which is why I originally recommended starting with just 1 female, so you can make sure you have a market before becoming overwhelmed by babies. A female can produce up to 20 babies each season, although I think it's usually not quite that many. Sometimes you don't have a 100% hatch rate, or your female doesn't produce that many being a first timer, or you have some infertile clutches. But you know, just a precaution.

 

[The Bearded Derek]

Alright, as for marketing, I'll try everything I can, posting in classifieds here, craigslist page, even a little website (Just need to find a place where I can make one for free and look good)

Now just one more question. Since I'm kinda on a low budget, where could be the cheapest websites to buy any good quality geckos at? (Preferably ones in from Florida)

 

[Neon Aurora]

I'm not all that familiar with breeders in Florida since I don't live there, but I'm sure you could find some good animals by simply typing "Leopard gecko breeders in Florida" into Google. I typed it in and found a few. I"m not sure on this sites rule on links, so I'm not going to post any. Google is your friend, you can find anything you need to know with Google.

You're welcome to PM me if you have other questions later on, I'm happy to help.