I'm new to leopard geckos, got my first one a month ago. I did do a great amount of reading and research before I got her home. So far I've got a UTH on one side, a night time heat bulb, good hides on each side, and a tupperware full of spahgnum moss that I mist with water regularly. I have one of those laser thermometers that I bought for cooking but use for lots of stuff, and the temperature readings on the warm side and inside the hide are around 90-92 degrees, the temps on the cool side are about 80 because my apartment is 80. I hope it will cool down this winter. It's a 15 gallon tank. I'm using a reptimate and papertowlels as substrate. She's got a shallow dish of spring water, and a dish with plain calcium, I dump the food on top of the calcium powder. I've been dusting her food every other feeding or so with D3 added calcium.
I'm feeding her crickets and i have mealworms on hand for convenience once in awhile. She was kind of a doofus hunter so I got worried, she'd miss most the time she lunged for a cricket. I started breaking their legs off and putting them in the fridge. It seems like she got better at it, or perhaps giving them a little chill each time gives her the edge she needs.
I'm going to start weighing her, I wish I'd weighed her when I first got her home because I'm almost certain I see some growth. Her tail looks fatter, there's some bands of color developing in her tail, her body looks bigger and her legs look bigger. I also see a fatter looking belly. It could be all in my mind, and she didn't look bad when I got her.
Anyway, I'm doing the best I can because I really like her and I take my reptile hobby seriously. She had me at the reptile show stuck in a little container, looking up and blinking with her adorable little face.
I was a bit of a doofus myself, first thing I did when I got home was try to situate some crickets into a container and they went flying everywhere like popcorn, I was screaming my head off, and when I managed to get a few into the tank she couldn't catch them, so I was a bit discouraged.
Now it seems like we have a system going, I bought a cricket keeper to house and catch those critters, I feed her the same time every night and she hears me and comes out by her dish. I drop some chilled crickets in there and she starts eating them as soon as they twitch. Even ones that revive and start running around the cage she seems to lay in wait and nail them, no problems. She's picked her toilet spot, and I got brave enough to start picking her up. She's had one normal shed cycle.
I'm amazed at how cute she is and how she's taming to me. She was offended by my presence at first and would just waddle into her hide, now she comes out, doesn't mind if I touch her on the head, ate from tongs, and doesn't seem very troubled if I handle her a little. What a neat little creature!
I don't know if anyone else hates Jimminy Cricket like I do, but I made a dark humor video featuring her:
[YT]ufXk8PvRRuI&feature[/YT]
I'm feeding her crickets and i have mealworms on hand for convenience once in awhile. She was kind of a doofus hunter so I got worried, she'd miss most the time she lunged for a cricket. I started breaking their legs off and putting them in the fridge. It seems like she got better at it, or perhaps giving them a little chill each time gives her the edge she needs.
I'm going to start weighing her, I wish I'd weighed her when I first got her home because I'm almost certain I see some growth. Her tail looks fatter, there's some bands of color developing in her tail, her body looks bigger and her legs look bigger. I also see a fatter looking belly. It could be all in my mind, and she didn't look bad when I got her.
Anyway, I'm doing the best I can because I really like her and I take my reptile hobby seriously. She had me at the reptile show stuck in a little container, looking up and blinking with her adorable little face.
I was a bit of a doofus myself, first thing I did when I got home was try to situate some crickets into a container and they went flying everywhere like popcorn, I was screaming my head off, and when I managed to get a few into the tank she couldn't catch them, so I was a bit discouraged.
Now it seems like we have a system going, I bought a cricket keeper to house and catch those critters, I feed her the same time every night and she hears me and comes out by her dish. I drop some chilled crickets in there and she starts eating them as soon as they twitch. Even ones that revive and start running around the cage she seems to lay in wait and nail them, no problems. She's picked her toilet spot, and I got brave enough to start picking her up. She's had one normal shed cycle.
I'm amazed at how cute she is and how she's taming to me. She was offended by my presence at first and would just waddle into her hide, now she comes out, doesn't mind if I touch her on the head, ate from tongs, and doesn't seem very troubled if I handle her a little. What a neat little creature!
I don't know if anyone else hates Jimminy Cricket like I do, but I made a dark humor video featuring her:
[YT]ufXk8PvRRuI&feature[/YT]
