New Pickup!! Introducing... Humphrey!

[olstyn]

Rhacs don't usually get 'nippy' in the same sense that other insect-eating or predatory geckos would. Oh they'll still hunt and whatnot, but they generally don't associate fingers with biting unless you overdo it.

Thank you, but Rhac geckos aren't like monitors and many other types of lizards. Being primarily fruit eaters, they don't generally react to hand feeding.

I have a crestie who is downright chompy sometimes, to the point where we've gone to using gloves to handle her because she's so unpredictable and we're tired of getting bitten. Sure, she can't do any real damage (it's basically like getting pinched), but she knows the difference between skin and leather - she never tries to bite the gloves, so it's just more expedient to wear them. We've never been able to determine what caused the change in her behavior (she's never been hand fed, and never bit for the first 4+ years of her life, and then went aggro on us seemingly at random about 2 years ago), but the situation has left me thinking that anything that could encourage biting should be avoided.

Admittedly, it's a sample size of one, and therefore not statistically relevant, but it has colored my opinion.

[Evenstar]

I have a crestie who is downright chompy sometimes, to the point where we've gone to using gloves to handle her because she's so unpredictable and we're tired of getting bitten. Sure, she can't do any real damage (it's basically like getting pinched), but she knows the difference between skin and leather - she never tries to bite the gloves, so it's just more expedient to wear them. We've never been able to determine what caused the change in her behavior (she's never been hand fed, and never bit for the first 4+ years of her life, and then went aggro on us seemingly at random about 2 years ago), but the situation has left me thinking that anything that could encourage biting should be avoided.

Admittedly, it's a sample size of one, and therefore not statistically relevant, but it has colored my opinion.

I can certainly understand that!! There is always the exception to the rule. If I may, to my way of thinking anyhow, it sounds like your girl may be hormonal. Just like some people, some animals can have an excess of hormones which may cause erradic behavior at any/all times of the year. Not sure if this would be the case with her, but its possible. If that were to be true, then you would not have ever done anything to encourage the biting - it's her own raging hormones that cause her to be like that. Again, these are just my thoughts....

[olstyn]

I can certainly understand that!! There is always the exception to the rule. If I may, to my way of thinking anyhow, it sounds like your girl may be hormonal. Just like some people, some animals can have an excess of hormones which may cause erradic behavior at any/all times of the year. Not sure if this would be the case with her, but its possible. If that were to be true, then you would not have ever done anything to encourage the biting - it's her own raging hormones that cause her to be like that. Again, these are just my thoughts....

You're not the first person to suggest that this might be the case, and it's certainly a plausible theory. The weird part is that, like I said earlier, it started after several years of completely aggression-free life. She had always been a little bit flighty, but never bitten, and then one day, bam. That said, the hormone theory is lent some credence by the fact that she lays infertile eggs so regularly that you'd think she was a chicken. (Hasn't been exposed to a male since she was a juvenile, and she drops 6+ single-egg infertile clutches every year, starting in the spring and going until late summer.)