Leopard Gecko Care Sheet

By:Anthony Sinn

Base Informatiom of Care and Husbandry

Common Name: Leopard Gecko

Scientific Name: Eublepharis macularius

Size: 5 - 9 inches when full grown

Temperment: An extremly friendly small lizard.However, an occasional skittish individual can be encountered but is not very common.

Cage Requirements:

Size:A single leopard gecko can live its entire life in a 10 gallon aqarium. A colony of 5 (1 male and 4 females) geckos can be housed in a 50 gallon aquarium.
Temperature: Daytime High (DTH): 25° Night Time Low (NTL): 20°
The temperature can be increased up to 90° in late December to encourage breeding.
Substrate: 5cm of sand mixed with larger pebbles allows the animals to dig. Newspaper and "astroturf"can also be used instead of sand.
Humidity: A relative humidity of 40-50% provided by a large water bowl. This will help during shedding process.
Heating: The heat is provided by an incandesant spotlight on top of the cage. A human heating pad set on low will also provide added hotspots on the cage floor.
UV light:None. However, some herpetoculturalists find nocturnal lizards do benefit fron 15 minutes of UV per day.

Prey Items:

A staple diet of live healthy crickets. Wax worms are fatty and are perfect for increasing weight up during breeding season. Mealworms can be fed occasionally but have too much exoskeleton to be used as a staple food.
Crickets purchsed from a petstore must be feed a high protien diet (ie. flake fishfood) a few days prior to being feed to the geckos. Feeder insects must also be dusted with a calcium suppliment to provide some added dietary elements. The insects are dusted just prior to feeding.

Feeding:

Hatchlings are fed small crickets every other day. Older babies and juveniles are fed 1 cricket daily and adults can be fed 2-3 insects at a time every other day. The geckos will eat as much as they are offered even to the point of regurgitation. A rule of thumb is to under feed and not over feed.

Males:

Males are territorial. Highly recommended: keep 1 male per cage.

Breeding and Incubating:

It works best to have a few females to a male. This gives more eggs and therefore more babies. A nesting site conaining moist vermiculite is ideal for the females to lay their eggs in. Eggs are retrieved after they are laid and moved to an incubation site.Incubation Use a 4 liter rubber made with air holes punched in the cover for ventilation and minor air flow. Inside the container place a bed of moist, almost saturated, vermiculite or perilite. Place this on a shelf. Preferably in a closet that won't be disturbed to much. Under the shelf use a clamp lamp with a 40 watt bulb as a heat source. Get a battery operated thermometer, the kind with the sensor at the end of a wire, any hardware store has them for about $20.00 Canadian. Place the sensor where the eggs will be. and calibrate the temperature inside the container by raising or lowering the clamp lamp. Do this prior to the egg laying. Eggs can be transferred from the egg laying site into the container. Make sure your hands are washed and don't turn the eggs over, just as a precaution. As long as the heat is at 29 degrees Celsius and the eggs are in a bed of moist or almost saturated vermiculite or perilite inside a container with some minor air flow you are on the right track. Eggs will dent, about one week, just prior to hatching. A plastic shoebox containing moist vermiculite is an ideal incubation medium. The container must have some ventilation and also be placed in an area were the temperature is constant, 29°C is a good incubation temperature. Eggs hatch in about two months.

You and your Gecko

The leopard gecko can tolerate humans very well in fact. Like any reptiles you can over do it. Handling does provide the animal with some stimulation that many caged animals can tend to lack. They ususally have a gentle personality and you can even pat them however this will only be for the owners benefit ,the gecko really will be indifferent. Don't let the gecko out by its self. It will take off. If it does take off look for it under such items as the couch, fridge , furnace etc. They can survive for quite some time outside the cage.

Price:

The average price for leopard geckos tends to be anywhere from $45 to $100. I got my original three for about $45 a piece.

This just goes over the basics of leopard gecko care. See the bibliogrphy for recommended reading to provide more detailed references. I think they're great pets, and not that difficult to care for and to breed. I you have any specific questions:

E-mail me:ajs@iosphere.net