Leopard gecko breeding help
Hi! So Lea (my leopard gecko) is getting big and I was hoping to breed either her or Lenetta. A friend of mine got a male and is okay with doing a breeding project, and so I am hoping to do that, but I had a few questions:
1). What time of year is best? I know that their breeding season is January to September, but what time is best?
2). How do I incubate the eggs? I have a hova-bator incubator for chickens (I can take out the egg turner) and I have a Sterilite plastic shoebox full of vermiculite that I can moisten and use.
3). How do I raise hatchlings? I know how to care for juveniles but not hatchlings.
4). I give all of my geckos a dish of Calcium w/ d3 but should I do that for hatchlings?
5). Should I dust the hatchlings food with calcium and multivitamins?
6). When should the hatchlings first feeding be?
7). when should I give them a water dish?
8). Do I need to have the adult male go through a cycling period?
9). How can I be sure that my female actually uses her laying box? She doesn’t use her humid hide for shedding anymore and I’m not sure if she’d use a laying box.
thank you all for your help, and hopefully I’ll have some baby geckos to show you soon!
Re: Leopard gecko breeding help
Sounds good, but I have one question. Should I cool my first year female?
I don’t want to breed for money, I just want to gain experience breeding and raising hatchlings.
Re: Leopard gecko breeding help
I just was setting up the incubator so I could calibrate it and I came up with a few more questions.
1). The incubator has a water trough for raising humidity. Should I use that.
2). The incubator has a fan. Should I use that?
3). Should the incubation temp inside the incubator be the air temp inside or the incubation medium temp?
4). The incubation medium with the eggs will be in a plastic shoebox inside the incubator. Should I leave the lid of the shoebox on or take it off?
Thanks!
Re: Leopard gecko breeding help
I have gotten the incubator to the right temp. It's a hova bator that I took the egg turner out of. I just bought a few deli cups and will put some pinhole in it, and I bought 100% horticultural vermiculite I mixed with water at a 1:1 ratio by weight. I will be resting them directly on the substrate.