Timed pairing

[Josh P.]

Hello everyone,

When you place your geckos together for mating during breeding season, how long do you leave them together before removing the male? One hour? One day?

 

[DrCarrotTail]

Depends on the male and group. Sometimes I keep them together for the whole breeding season and sometimes I keep them together only until I see them mating (can be 5 minutes or several hours). Some of my males are overzealous and/or much bigger than my females (or vice versa) and I don't want to give them the chance to hurt each other. Some are "shy" and seem to need more time to get the job done. I usually only keep males in with groups but found that sometimes females lay eggs on the same day and then it can be difficult to tell which eggs came from which female. That was important to me last season as my main group were all sunglows but half were het raptor and it was almost impossible to tell the difference between offspring visually.

 

[Josh P.]

Last season I had a pair that would bite eachother during mating and leave scars on their skin. They did successfully mate but the biting made me uncomfortable so now I'm afraid of leaving them together again. I fear someday having one of them losing a tail or something.