Question about breeding/overbreeding

[amunson4]

My female leopard gecko just laid two unfertile eggs, she laid one on a saturday, and the second on the next saturday.

Since she laid the second egg I have seen her and the male we have mating two seperate times, on different days. Just wondering how many times it is ok for them to mate, and if we should seperate them at all and if so, at what point?

This is our first time breeding geckos and I ahve been looking into it a lot, and would like to get some fertile eggs and hatchlings this season as a local pet store has offered to help us out and buy any hatchlings we may get. What should we do to get the highest possibility of getting some fertile eggs? I also want it to be as safe as possible for the female(I understand that either way there are risks) I just want to minimize them as much as possible.

We arent looking to get a bunch of hatchlings or anything, just one would be fine. But we can handle more if need be. So, what should we do to maximize our chances of getting some fertile eggs, and how many times can the female mate safely before she lays her next set of eggs? Any help would be appreciated, thank you.

 

[acpart]

Leopard geckos store sperm, so if they mated successfully once and were separated the female could lay at least 3 clutches before needing to mate again (I don't know that there's been any research done about exactly how many clutches one mating is good for). Many people don't leave the male and female together because they feel the male will wear out the female with mating. I have generally not had this problem and keep my geckos in groups of 1 male and 2 females. The best way to insure fertile eggs is to make sure the adult males and females are well-fed a variety of insects and/or worms and properly supplemented. It's not unusual for a gecko's first clutch or clutches to be infertile and most of them get it right eventually. Good luck.

Aliza