Glad you’ve joined us here at leopardgecko-care.com. If you’re looking for the best information and tips on taking care of your Leopard Gecko, you’ve come to the right place!
In case you’re new to the these exotic lizards, let’s first introduce these stunningly awesome reptile pets which are becoming HOTTER in popularity as people expand their pet collection from ‘just’ dogs, cats, fishes, birds and hamsters.
Leopard geckos are small lizards named for their distinctive yellow and black coloring. With modern breeding, leopard geckos now come in many different colors (also known as morphs)
Isn’t Youtube the best?! Ok so there’s a lot of mindless rubbish on YouTube, but if you select carefully, there can be some genuinely useful videos too.
Oggiereptiles is someone I follow on Youtube for great leopard gecko tips. He’s super helpful with a down-to-earth, non-salesy style. And if there’s something you particularly want to know about, you can request via youtube and Oggiereptile might create a special video just for you and your particular queries. The video below is about breeding leopard geckos.It runs to about 10 minutes but it’s an easy viewing experience (despite the handheld camera!)
I recommend you view the video in its entirety and he opens up cages, boxes etc so you can see each part of the process in action.
To breed a leopard gecko in your own home, you’ll need:
1. A healthy male leopard gecko and a healthy female leopard gecko (I’m stating the obvious…but still!!). A male leopard gecko can mate with up to 7 females. Make sure the female gecko is healthy and robust enough. Only pick the healthiest females. You might want a slightly fatter one. Look for a particularly fat healthy tail. If they’re skinny, just leave them for a few weeks and get them nicely fattened up and super healthy.
2. A place the female can lay her eggs..you can buy egg laying boxes as seen in this video. The more females you have the more egg-laying boxes you’ll need and bigger ones too. Line the boxes with vermiculite. Vermiculite is a natural mineral that expands with heat and is the best insulator for leopard gecko eggs
3. A heat map: you should have one of these anyway if you’re keeping leopard geckos. Lay your egg boxes on this heat map and warmth is key for the eggs
4. More calcium as the female leopard gecko loses a lot of calcium in the breeding process
5. More vitamins and food: for the same reason as above.
6. Some patience, love and attention!
During breeding the male leopard gecko will bite the female on the neck, move their tail around and do their thing.
You’ll know they they have laid when you look in the egg box (do this gently) and you’ll see the vermiculite has been pushed to one side. Have a gentle prod and you’ll see the eggs in the mound.
The female will have a tell-tale bulge when she is carrying an egg, but she might re-absorb the egg if there’s a problem such as a lack of vitamins.
After the female leopard gecko has laid the eggs you should fatten them up again with plenty of vitamins and minerals.
You don’t need to buy an expensive incubator, OggieReptiles has been breeding successfully with a basic cage bought from a local pet store. But an incubator can help provide more accurate temperature regulation which is useful if you want to have control over the gender of your leopard gecko. More females are hatched when the temperature is 80-84 degrees fahrenheit, 84-86 gives you a mix of males and females.
Keep the eggs in vermiculite, being careful not to turn them or harm them in any way.
After 45-90 days they should hatch. They are tiny little things that will hiss and bite initially but will grow out of it. Loads of babies can be housed together. Just make sure you give them lots of vitamins and minerals. After two-three weeks when they are strong enough, you can sell them. Albinos are worth slightly more than normals to most pet stores.
But OggieReptile makes a good point that you shouldn’t be breeding leopard geckos unless you have a place to sell them before hand. Or you want to keep them yourself. If you do find a good pet store willing to pay, then you can make fairly decent pocket money from breeding leopard geckos. It’s pretty simple when you have the tools and a little bit of experience. There’s a lot more in the video, so I’ll leave it to you to watch and enjoy.
Stay subscribed because I will be scouring the likes of YouTube, vimeo and other video sharing sites to get you the best leopard gecko care videos.
A few months back, I showed you a YouTube video from a British leopard gecko breeder called OggieReptiles. Below is his updated video with some facts he missed first time round and after having received questions and feedback.
