Thinking about baby leos

Rejoice in the Lord

New Member
Messages
107
I've been doing a lot of reading, and it sounds like hatching out little ones can be a lot of fun. I'm thinking about possibly trying it sometime when my little guy gets a bit bigger and older.

My summer schedule is usually full, so I would really prefer to have babies hatching mid August or later. Then I can give them my full attention. For this to happen, would June would be the best time to introduce the two leos?

I have an incubator available if it can be found. Until it is, this project will be kept on hold.

I'm not planning to make any special morphs or anything. Their morphs (so well as I can tell, since they were pet store leos, and I don't know their parents) are tangerine and bell albino. I think that this would make the babies be anything from normal to tangerine het bell.

I know he came from Ron Trempers group, and I think there's a good chance that she did too. In July, he'll be one year, and in May, she will be two. Up until she was about a year old, she was really really bright, almost neon; and almost lost all her spots. Then, I tried cooling her, and her colors dulled somewhat, and she got a lot of spots where she had had stripes as a hatchling. I was reading about how he (and some others) incubate at high temps to produce brighter colors, and wondered how likely this was in her case; or if it's only the tremper albinos that do that.

Does this mean that if I want the babies to be bright, I should incubate at higher temps (or that being a newb, I shouldn't try that kind of stuff yet; and should expect duller babies)

I only want a few babies, as I think I could easily find homes for a few. I have two large tanks divided into thirds, which could easily be divided again to make 12 hatchling set-ups, and means to heat these twelve set-ups. I don't have the thermostat or rheostat for those tanks yet . . . but if babies are on the way, I will have one before they arrive.

It sounds like people here are only counting on three clutches, maybe five from one breeding. Is this reasonable for me to expect and be prepared for? Honestly, I'd be thrilled if she just laid one or two eggs for me, because then I wouldn't have to give my babies away, but that seems like an unreasonable expectation.

To this point, she has not laid an egg. If I let her breed once, will I start her on an egg-laying cycle that will continue for the rest of her life, or should she quit laying eggs if she's not being bred. It's probably different with each leo, but what is the tendency?

What is the minimum size , and depth of peat moss that would be suggested for a good laying box?

Any thoughts, suggestions, criticisms, convincing reasons I shouldn't try this, etc. are appreciated. I want to know what to expect, and not just jump blindly into this.

These are all my questions at the moment, but unless ya'll convince me not to try this, I'll probably be back with some more before long.
 

Ccrashca069

New Member
Messages
3,179
Location
Lake Berryessa/Napa, Calif
I have had 3 hatchlings this month so far. All have been very bright colored. I don't use the high temps that some use. A good example of my babies is this morning and I posted the hatchling under Show off your leopard geckos. The topic was Woke up to this surprise. The highest the temp got was 85. And for the record I don't have an incubator :main_laugh: I used my box turtle encloser lol.

Here is link to my first hatchlings when they were 1 week old. http://www.geckoforums.net/showthread.php?t=16470

This forum is by far better then any book to find info and have questions answered.

Good luck in what you decide to do.
 
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Rejoice in the Lord

New Member
Messages
107
Very cute babies! When I got Boo, she looked more like your bright little hatchling on the right. Here are some different pics of her at different ages.

The first day home (guess one week old? what do you all think?)
Boo01sizecomparison.jpg


one month old
boo04vibrantcolors.jpg


two months old
Boo07inhand2.jpg


four months old
boo12inhide.jpg


eight months old about the time she started hanging out on the cool side and quit eating. I tried the cooling thing a month later.
boo21inhand2500x359.jpg


thirteen months old; just warmed up and eating again after cooling
boo29inhand500x455.jpg


and finally one from last month (20 months old)
1-08booinhand2cropped.jpg


You can see the color change, particularly how she got a lot more spots when I cooled her.

Now, for a lot of "what if's" that probably no one can answer for sure.

What if I had not cooled her . . . would she not have developed the spots?

Assuming she was high-temp incubated, if she had been incubated at normal regular temps, would she have started out less bright, but look the same as she looks now?

Would a leo that is incubated at regular temps, and then cooled develop more spots too?

Did the extra spots she developed really have nothing to do with the cooling, and they would have appeared around 10-12 months regardless of the temperature she was kept at?

If sometime in the future, I cooled her again, what is the probabilty of her developing even more spots?

I am thinking about maybe starting the eggs incubating around 82, and raising the incubator temp by one degree each week until it reaches about 88. (assuming that in the middle of the summer I can keep the temp down to 82)

Any problems or difficulties that I should expect to encounter with this plan?

This thread seems to be getting away from breeding . . . which forum SHOULD I have started this topic in?
 

Ccrashca069

New Member
Messages
3,179
Location
Lake Berryessa/Napa, Calif
Leopard Geckos don't need a cooling down period. The one thing I love about getting leopards when they are young is how fast their color and pattern changes. I don't know any for sure answers about cooling her down so now she has spots. I never cool my leopards and they developed spots. So maybe she would have got the spots if you cooled her down or not. Here is a pic of my baby that hatched before I went to bed last night.
Dakota.JPG
 

acpart

Geck-cessories
Staff member
Messages
15,455
Location
Somerville, MA
I have seen a number of tangerine colored geckos, especially the red stripes looking bright orange when young and then at about a year or so getting more spots and turning a duller brown/orange. A few years ago I saw a striking picture of a red racing stripe gecko with beautiful unbroken orange stripes on either side of his back. Then the seller posted of the picture of the gecko at the time of sale and it was unrecognizeable --dull orange/brown with spots all over. My male redstripe has dulled somewhat and gotten more spots, but not too many more and being a male he was incubated at a higher temperature. I think it's unavoidable with some strains of tang.

ALiza
 

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