Leopard gecko breeding questions

[Lizrd_boy]

Yeah. This is my first time and I'm not thinking Ill be quiting anytime soon . the leopard gecko addiction moves to it's next stage...

[Bogertophis]

Please defer to others who have actually bred these, BUT, I suspect the UTH is safe as long as it's NOT under the entire container, maybe a third or half at the most- & of course, as long as it's controlled by t-stat. Keep in mind that in smaller containers like this, the heat doesn't all stay on one side either. I would think that it's safer to allow options- warmer & cooler areas. And "from where I sit", I'd leave those options 24/7- day & night.

No matter what some say, there is more than one way to safely raise most of these things- as long as you've got the 'big picture' correct, & as long as you're paying attention. I think it's valuable to get multiple opinions for this reason, then keep them all in mind but follow your gut, based on what you're seeing. Like, if you heat half the container with UTH, & they're always on the OTHER (unheated) side, you probably need to tone it down. Obviously, you need to pay the most attention at the beginning- so no harm is done. 90* does sound pretty warm for such tiny creatures to me, but I've mostly raised snakes.

Again, I won't be insulted if you defer to others breeding specifically these creatures- but keep in mind that in the wild they have temperature options too, not just 90* for 24/7.

[Erie_herps]

I've only raised 3 babies so I don't have a ton of experience but I'll share what's worked for me. I keep them pretty much exactly like how you mentioned. I keep them in individual 6 qt shoeboxes, paper towel substrate, and a small water dish (I use bottle caps). I used one main hide and additional half-toilet paper roll "hides" (they don't technically count as hides but using them is better than nothing). I kept the tubs over heat tape covering 1/4-1/3 of the bottom (I figured that the less area is better to create a gradient in a small tub) set to ~90* during the day and a few degree night drop just to keep a cycle. If you don't have the ability to set different temperatures at night then leaving it on 24/7 is perfectly fine. I keep the babies in the same rack as the adults except when placing the tubs I place them so they only cover about half of the heat tape.

[Bogertophis]

For tiny "hides" you might consider raiding your pantry- jello/pudding boxes would also work nicely.

[Lizrd_boy]

That sounds great! The UTHs I have are pretty small, but even so I'm thinking I'll put them sideways so they cover only about 1/4 of the floor space. Right not I'm calibrating the tstat, and I will try to give them a night drop as well. I may not be able to do it every night because I may get home to late and I won't want to mess around with tstats at 11:30 at night lol.

I'm basically glued to the viewing window of my incubator. Hopefully soon I'll see a dent in the egg!

[Lizrd_boy]

He hatched!!! I checked this morning and there was a BIIG dent in the egg, to the point where I was a bit concerned, and it turns out, there was no gecko in it anymore. He was hiding in the corner. He’s in his sterilite tub now and looking around. I love that little scream!!!
here’s a link to some pics:
https://ourreptileforum.com/communit...hatched.25231/

[Erie_herps]

That's super exciting!! He's super cute too! Congratulations! Keep us updated with how he does. How are the other eggs doing?

[Lizrd_boy]

One of the others developed mold and stunk, and looked yellow so I removed it. The other has a bright red glow and is doing great, and Lenetta is due to lay her next clutch soon.

[Bogertophis]

A HUGE Congratulations! I sure know the feeling & believe me, it never gets "old".

[Erie_herps]

Baby leos will usually eat a lot. Depending on the size of the crickets he might even eat up to 15 or so. What some breeders will do (and I've done a couple times with adults, just because I hate dealing with crickets) is put the babies (one at a time of course) in a tub/enclosure without decorations that has dozens of loose crickets in there. The gecko is left in there for about 15 minutes to catch as many crickets as it can. That has the benefit of the gecko eating what it needs, the crickets aren't in the enclosure (which can harm the gecko), and it's a lot simpler to deal with the crickets since they are all only in one area. The gecko should be observed to make sure it's able to catch and eat them and if it doesn't catch enough or it looks like it's still hunting, additional crickets can be fed normally.