Hand taming?

[Ogre]

So I've had my leopard gecko for a month or so and he's doing great. And I was wondering what steps I should start to take to get him to be hand tame (i.e. Not biting and hissing at my hand when placed in the tank to get him used to me.) He now doesn't immediately run and hide but he slowly makes his way into his hide and the proceeds to bite at my hand from the nearest opening.

Sorry for the typos, I have large thumbs and they make typing difficult.

[BenzieBox]

I am interested to know the same. I've had my little guy for quite some time and he still hisses and lunges at me. I don't want to stress him out at all since when I received him he was in poor condition.

I usually just lay my hand in the tank and let him approach me. This can take a while, though, so I do it when I have time to just relax with my reps. Eventually he comes over and just sort of pokes at my hand with his mouth.

[Ogre]

That's where I'm at too. I've made little head way. I also started hand feeding hopefully he realizes my hands bring him delicious delicious super worms.

[BenzieBox]

I had to stop hand feeding my guy. When I first received him he came from a home where children were always grabbing on him. He had dropped his tail when he was still a little baby and was near starving. They claimed he was "blind" but really he just doesn't have great eye-sight. I was hand feeding in the beginning but I noticed he was getting lazy and refused to chase anything on his own. Now I feed him with the lights dim and he seems to do well that way.

I don't necessarily want him to sit and cuddle with me but I would like to be able to move him to and from his enclosure without him whipping his head around to bite me and stressing us both out.

[kameo37]

Though I do think hand taming is totally possible, I also think there are more personality issues with leos. Just percentage wise, you know? We have one that is calm and sweet as can be. The other is a biter and seriously doesn't let you come near her...unless you have a bowl of insects. I've seen some leos at shows too that kind of had the same deal. Some are handleable, some not so much. I'm no expert though, just my experience. The one that we have that is the spaz is named Lucky. It was just a cute name, at first, but now it's more like "you're LUCKY you landed in this family and not somewhere else because you would've been given away by now..."
:/

[BenzieBox]

Ha Lucky that's funny.

Maybe that's my loe's issue. He probably just doesn't want to be handled which I'm fine with. I only want to be able to place him in his little storage keeper while I clean out his enclosure without him throwing a tantrum. Last night we had a good experience together. I laid my hand down and crawled into it slowly and then he was given crickets directly afterwards. Perhaps he'll remember this and realize the tan fleshy thing is not here to kill him.

[Samii]

I used to have 2 leopard geckos. Both were sweet as can be and I never really had to deal with biting after the first 2 or 3 weeks. I didn't hand feed, because I didn't want them associating my hands with food, I just think that encourages biting. Never had either drop their tails either. One of my girls was especially sweet and loved crawling up across my body to land on my shoulder and just perch there for a while.

[rocknhorse76]

I have 4, and all them are sweet and gentle as can be. I've had them since they were young, and have always fed them their superworms with forceps. I let them chase their crickets, but they've come to associate my hands with good things, and will allow me to pick them up with no fuss.

[Ogre]

We'll I'm making progress, today he let me give him a little pet/scratch on the head and he gave me a look that seemed to say 'I guess you're Ok.' I think a lot of it is definitely his personality but the hand feeding and placing my hand I the tank while absently talking helps.