I'm still pretty new at this so please suffer through another basic question from me.

One of our Leopard Geckos (her name is Cleo) stopped eating recently, or ate very little, even if we put it right in front of her. The other leo in her tank was not a bully, but she would finish off her own bowl of mealies then move on to Cleo's bowl, so we bought a new tank for Cleo thinking she was just timid with her sister around. Cleo still wouldn't eat and we've been worried for a few days, when tonight she was ravenous and at like 15 mealies, and finally I happened to glance at her moist hide and there were 2 eggs in it! Which I guess explained the temporary loss of appetite.

So my question is, for clarification, do the females lay eggs on a regular basis, even without having gone on any "dates" with a male? How often do they lay eggs? How many do they usually lay?

Thanks! I had been reading the other "not eating" threads with interest and I'm glad my leo's problem was something simple. I hope everyone else gets better soon, too!

No they will only lay if they have a mate with a male. An will lay several eggs.

No, they can lay with out a male.

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Hmmm, glad that was cleared up.

leopard geckos can lay with out a male. It happens. Sorry my other post was confusing. Yes Leopard Geckos can lay eggs with out a male to fertlize them. Its been known to happen. They wont be fertile though.

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Thanks, no your post wasn't confusing, just the fact that I got two completely different answers!

I guess it's possible that her "sister" that she had been housed with is really her brother, the guy we adopted them from said there were 2 females and 1 male and my husband looked at them when we got them home and I think he was a little "iffy" on one of them. So we immediately separated the one we thought was the male and left the other two together these past 2 or 3 months, and just now separated the "sisters" because Cleo had not been eating.

Well, it doesn't matter now. We're not breeders and we didn't keep the eggs (we had no way of incubating them anyway). So they're all separated into their respective 20L tanks and all seem happy now. I'll let you know if I see any more eggs.

Thanks!

I beleive that Geckos can also store sperm for later use!

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

While Leo females have been known to lay eggs without ever being bred it does not happen as frequently as with say- bearded dragons
If your female was housed with a male she can be laying fertilized eggs and you can make a homemade incubator quite easily-should you choose to

leopard geckos most definitely DO store sperm and one mating is all that is needed for a season of 6 plus clutches of 2 eggs
So get ready for more eggs in anywhere from 2 weeks to a month

Make sure that this female is getting all that she wants in the way of food and lots of pure/plain calcium and of course her regularly scheduled multivitamin

Most people do keep gravid females alone so it's good that you have moued everyone into their own tanks
I think that you will find that they will all do better kept separately

Also-if you had that suspected male in with your other female-be prepared for eggs from her in the future
hope this helps

Sandy

Thank you so much! Yes, Sandy, the other female was in with the male when we first adopted them; they were all together. Supposedly they were all littermates (or whatever they're called in reptile terms; I know more about cats and their terminology ). So if we were correct the first time, that means both females could possibly have been fertilized so I'll need to watch them both for more eggs. But if we were wrong, and left a male in with the female, then I just have to watch the one that has already laid some eggs. Does anyone know how long they gestate? Maybe that would give me a clue as to who's the daddy (I suppose I could also book them on Montel, but that would probably take too long )

I'm really not interested in the incubator and keeping the eggs/babies. We've got our three that we're happy with, I have no more room for more tanks! Besides, they're brother/sister so I'm not sure how good that is in geckos (I know it's okay for some mammals but not for others).

Thanks again, everyone, for all the advice.

Roughly one month for them to lay the first clutch from the time of mating and anywhere from every 2 weeks to every month or so for following clutches of 2 eggs each

Sandy