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Breeding Leopard Geckos Is sometimes easy & some times hard, In 2001 I tried to hatch some eggs in the vivarium with no luck it was not hot enough & the crickets ate the eggs. But in 2002 I built my own Incubator which was easy to make, anyone can do it, my incubator keeps the eggs at a constant temperature around 85 degrees farienheight & it worked, I managed to hatch 16 of the 30 eggs that were layed. Now I will tell you how to hatch your own eggs. |
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Mating |
Mating is not often witnessed but this is what happens, The male will follow the female around the vivarium not leaving her
alone at all, when he is ready he will bite the females neck to hold her still while he mates her. The female does not usually
like this at all but if you want fertilized eggs then you have to let happen, while he is biting her neck the female will
struggle a lot, shaking her tail and moving about trying to get out of his grip. It mostly happens at night when they are
active, you will hear a lot of banging around goin on because the female will run the male into hides etc to try and get him
to stop. |
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Egg Laying |
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The Female Leopard Gecko usually lays her eggs between february & September laying around 7 clutches of 2 eggs in that time (Please Note: young & very old females will sometimes lay only 1 egg at a time).Watch your female closely at this time,you will see them digging around the vivarium (above) ,come back later & check all the places she has been digging, gently remove the sand
or bark to see if there are any eggs, if so do not move them get a felt tip pen & gently draw a + on the top of the eggs.(doing this will let you know which way up the egg and embryo was laid so you can leave it this way in the incubator) Use a different colour for each clutch & make a note of when you put them in so you can estimate a hatching date.If your female does not not seem to
be laying eggs then make a nest by cutting the front of a cricket box, and fill it with warm moist vermiculite (Below).
Next take the eggs over to the incubator with the + facing up. |
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Building An Incubator |
You need to have an incubator set up for when the eggs are laid, to build an incubator you will need a plastic animal cage (Below 3)
eg hamster cage 45cm(long)X 25cm(Wide)X 30cm(High),
then you will need another plastic animal cage 25cm(long)X 15cm(Wide)X 15c(high)(Below 1),
next you will need 2 bricks or ceramic cups that will fit parallel inside the large animal cage (Below 6),
then you will need a submersible heater that will also fit inside the large cage I got mine from a local aquatics shop for 18 pounds (Below 2),
you will also need an accurate thermometer (electronic is best) (Below 4).
Then you will need to fill it with water up to the bottom of the small cage (Below 5). You will also need some hard board or Plastic to cover the top of the large cage to stop the heat coming out. The idea is that the submersible heater will heat the water and this will heat the bottom of the small
cage where the eggs are in the vermiculite. It will evopourate the water in the Vermiculite and make the air warm, the vermiculite will keep the eggs even warmer during the incubation process. Every few weeks check the water level of the incubator to see weather it is touching/heating the bottom of the cage if it is not then add more water do this every time it is low. |
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When you transfer your eggs to the incubator you mus be careful not to drop them, you will need to have some moist Vermiculite inside the small animal cage (half water half vermiculite) so that when you put your eggs in the incubator the the vermiculite will keep them warm from underneath, you can buy vermiculite from any reptile specialist. Next, place the eggs in the vermiculite
(again half buried half not buried), set your submersible heater to around 28C. (please note that the submersable heater must be fully in the water when turned on if not it may break) & watch the thermometer to see if it goes to 82F depending on what sex you are trying to get, if not adjust the heater temp as necessary
until satisfied, you can determin what sex the gecko will be by the temperature of the incubator,
78-82F for all Girls
83-86F for Boys & Girls and
87-90F for all Boys. All these temperatures may vary, they are not exact. The heater will keep the incubator at a constant temperature. Once the eggs are in you will need the piece of wood or fiber glass to go over the top of the incubator to stop the heat coming out,
then leave the eggs inside & check on them daily. after about a week if the eggs have sunk in or shrivled up then this means they are unfertilised witch means they will not hatch. If they are fertilised they should hatch within 6-10 weeks this is what most books say but mine hatch at around 5 weeks. |
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New born Leopard Geckos |
When an egg hatches the baby will be very small & very scared, do not attempt to touch it as they will hiss or scream at you, if it has just hatched leave it in the incubator for a few hours, then prepare a small Vivarium for it with some hides (toilet roll tubes), things to climb on and a water dish, you also need a heat mat you must make sure that the vivarium is at least 30C. Spray the baby with water it might hiss at you but it needs to get used to it, when its brother or sister hatches soon after it is a good idea to keep them both together, they will not fight they will be happy to have some company. It is a good idea to keep the clutches together so you can monitor each cluches progress, also if an older baby gecko is kept together with a younger baby the older one may bully the little one and it will not eat and grow alot because it will be stressed. After a few days they will shed their skin for the first time this will give them something to eat, soon after about a week they will begin eating crickets you should buy some pinhead crickets to start with, then when they get older they will be big enough to eat medium crickets and so on. They will sleep alot their first couple of weeks but be paitent, when they are about 3 weeks old try to handle them a bit, put your hand in the Vivarium to see if you can get them to walk on it, because you need to handle them so that they will be tame when they get older also at this time they should be starting
to form spots on their body.
© copyright law 2002 |
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