What morph am I + questions ?

[Kingpythons]

New here,

So I bought a Leopard gecko for my GF, I dont know exactly if I paid to much for this gal and barley know how old she is. Anyone want to help me out? She's 35 grams, suppose to be hypo and carrot tail or het carrot tail(paid $40). What ever that means? If you know where I can learn a good amount of stuff on morphs drop a link im more then willing to learn something. I have her in my tub(32QT) with a cool side of 75-80 warm side at 88-92. three hides one being a humid hide. 1 small shallow dish 1 bowl for calcium but im wondering if im dumping my money into this dish for nothing or if I should just dust crickets in it? am i missing something?

Pictures of Goldie

(decent lighting in the bathroom sorry)

I dont care what she is but it will help to determine a mate for her in the future.

 

[katie_]

Its best to know what you have for sure, plus unknown hets if you plan on breeding.
My advice would be to keep this one as a pet, and buy higher quality stock from a breeder who knows all genetics.

 

[DrCarrotTail]

She does indeed look like an SHTCTB. $40 is not unreasonable for a healthy adult leopard gecko of any morph. . Sounds like you have a nice setup going there!

I put calcium in a little soda cap in my tanks and tubs. Inevitably the geckos walk through it and spill it but that just means it gets changed every week or two and stays clean. Mine also get a mix of calcium and vitamin powder left in their mealworm bowl

 

[Kingpythons]

Hello,
I thank you for your reply but I don't really know how that helped me Katie.

 

[Kingpythons]

Lisa,
Any good links I should read for me to get the hang on morphs? I understand genetics with ball pythons but leopard gecko sounds like a whole new ball game. What does shtctb stand for?

 

[J&K's Lemy]

SHTCTB super hypo tang carrot tail baldy
super form
hypo lack of body spots
tang orange
carrot tail orange tail
baldy no spots on head

Mine has spots on his lower jaw

 

[DrCarrotTail]

Check the stickies in this section for more good links about morphs. The one I find most useful are the descriptions of morphs and calculator at:

http://www.reptilecalculator.com/

I think Katie's point is that baby leopard geckos that aren't from good quality stock of known backgrounds can be tough to find homes for. A single female can produce over 20 eggs in a season so that's a lot to find homes for! Also, read a bit about albinos and try to understand why its bad to cross the different strains. Breeding them together is pretty taboo in the leopard gecko world and many serious breeders spend several years checking and double checking that their stock does not have a recessive albino gene hidden in their background. If you don't do your checking or can't document the geckos genetic past your babies probably be overlooked by a lot of folks.

Best of luck!

 

[katie_]

It was advice.
Sometimes when you breed geckos with mystery hets you get disapointed. Some people wont buy geckos with unknown genetics. It will help you be more successful.

 

[garner63080]

Actually my brother in law breeds ball pythons, and I think the leopards are a lot easier to understand the genetics. But as far as a mate for this one, no one is downing your enthusiasm just wouldn't recommend breeding if you don't know her genes. But she is a good looking SHTCTB.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Kingpythons]

So she shouldn't ever be bred pretty much ?

 

[bubblez825]

Yes, pretty much. She could have recessive dominate and co-Dom traits that when crossed with a male of known or unknown genetics will produce a variety of babies with unknown accurate genetics and completely unknown recessive traits. This can make it very difficult to find homes for the babies, since breeders will NOT buy any geckos just because they "look pretty", they want exact genetics, history of both parents genetics, and a complete workup of all the hets and hidden genes of the babies. Also, there are three different albino strains, tremper, bell, and (rainwater?). If you cross any of these by accident, you'll open yourself up to a whole new big mud puddle of genetics and are basically producing the "mutts" of leopard geckos. It gets REALLY messy and impossible. There's no way AT ALL to tell what the heck the babies are, which is why its not ethical to cross the albino strains. You could sell any babies to a pet store or to people "just for pets" but that can be real difficult as well. Like Katie said, if you want a breeding project, invest in quality stock from a known breeder who can tell you generics of the geckos you buy and what your possible outcomes of babies are, make sure you aren't crossing any albino strains, and producing your own quality stock, with 100% known genetics

 

[Kingpythons]

So I have a chance to call the breeder, what should I ask?

 

[DrCarrotTail]

I would ask what morphs the parents of your gecko were and if he/she knows what morphs the grand parents were. I would also ask what other morphs he/she works with and if there's any chance of any hidden recessive traits (hets) in the geckos background.

 

[bubblez825]

Agreed, find out AS MUCH as you can about the lineage of your girl as far back as you can. Any and every recessive and dominate trait IS IMPORTANT as well as anything that may have been crossed into her lineage at any point in time. You need to know EVERYTHING about her and her Lineage If you ever even want to think about breeding her

 

[featheredfamilyfriends]

Its good to know as much as possible about your girls genetics and any genes she could carry prior to breeding.

She looks a lot like my male who is also a Super Hypo Tangerine Carrot Tail. Ideally they are much more orangey-red(google tornado tangerine those are so pretty and very much an improved version). So yours, like my male are just not one of those geckos that will be "improving" the line. But hey plenty of people breed them anyways and afterall, this is just a pet gecko. I bred my male with another tangerine and got 2 babies. I will love them and enjoy them.

But if you do want to be serious about breeding great quality geckos, you should look into investing so $ into the really good colors bred by those who keep good records, can tell you parents genetics, and breed to improve coloring or patterns.

Its kind of like dogs, ya know pet vs show quality so to speak.