My son (he's 14) has two leopard geckos. The male we purchased for him for his 13th birthday, he named it Lep, and the other was given to him as a baby, it had a calcium deficency and as a result has a twisted leg (He named her Rubber Bones). Anyway one of the geckos, the female obviously , laid two eggs today...

We unfortunately weren't prepared for this as we thought she was too young for such sport..

She laid one egg in her water dish and one in the eco earth in her enclosure. The egg she laid in her eco earth collapsed and we've placed the other in a warm damp towel.

I'm currently looking around for info on what we should do from this point on since we were caught unprepared this time. Anyone have any friendly advice?

Here are some photos of the way we found them.

Hello,

I would start with reading this: Leopard Gecko Care. That caresheet covers everything from housing, diet, heating, to breeding and incubation.

Your female should not be housed with that male. He is much larger than her. It would be safer if she was the large gecko and he was the little one. She is not of adequate breeding weight. (Now that she is laying eggs, she needs to be housed alone. She will keep laying eggs and the male will keep trying to breed with her!)

Male leopard geckos should be housed with multiple females, of adequate size, when being bred. They are fairly aggressive and can cause extreme stress on a single female which can cause illness.

The fact that the female laid the eggs in the water dish and on the substrate means you don't have a moist hide in the enclosure. The moist hide helps with sheds but also doubles as an egg laying box.

You and your son should go over the caresheet and compare it to how you are housing the Leopard Geckos currently. There are several things that should be changed.

Your son can post on this site btw. We are child friendly here.

I myself own 14 leopard geckos and I breed.

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Thanks for the assistance Rich. I would like to point out that it wasn't my intention that they breed. We actually just determined their sexes now.. We were waiting for the female to grow a bit to determine sex. I guess we don't need to wait anymore. I'm quite ashamed and feel badly. We are making a hide box for them and are looking into his housing.

Thanks for your help.

I will mention to my son that you are child friendly and he'll probably make an appearance here soon...

Pixiee - you shouldn't beat yourself up now - what is done is done.

You will need to spit them up as Rich said - only similar sized females should be housed together and that is only if they tolerate each other.

I now breed my Leopard Geckos - totally new to it all too (breeding not herps!!) and I keep my leo females together then my males all live singly.

Your female will lay more eggs so right now you need to get some good foods into her - plenty of calcium to aid the eggs growth and also make sure she is maintaining as high a weight as possible. do you know her wieght right now at all??

I hope she is okay for you and good luck

Brit

Thanks for the support Britt.

Both of the geckos are given all the calcium they want and as we buy our bugs in bulk there's plenty of grub.

Here are a couple pics that accurately show the sizes of my geckos.

Here's one of Lep, our male.



Here's one of Rubber Bones, our female. (in this one you can see her one foot is twisted. That's the damage from before we got her.


Here's one of both of them together.

the male is to big to be toghether with the female I think

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brazilian rainbow boa--- Pandora
Cali King---Oreo

Life is to short to worry about your mistake's as long as you learn from them.

There is a very marked difference BUT my female is smaller than my male by 20 grams and looks tiny in comparison and he is still the father of her babies and has been for the last 6 clutches (not with me though!)

You will know when she is ready next time - keep her hide moist (I use moss) and she will dig in it - my Nancy left her viv looking like the aftermath of a party lol

Best of luck and please keep us all posted on her progress

Thanks for your opinions. We do have a moist hide put into her enclosure now, with echo earth rather than moss. I read somewhere that you should use echo earth or vermiculite. Opinions on that?

As I don't currently have another viv, heat source, thermostat.. etc. I can't move him to another location but as a temporary solution I've added a den that the male can't fit into, so she can have solitude should she want it.

That is a good idea

I use spagnum moss for my moist hides - it is a good moisture holder although some people still prefr kitchen towel sprayed with water.

Vermiculite is an incubation medium - it is okay for eggs but you don't really want it in with her incase she eats some of it

Good luck - get some more pics up when you can too - we love pics

I use to use spagnum moss for my moist hides, until I read somewhere that is was dangerous-though it is probably not, and has never caused my Leopard Geckos any problems. I can't remember where I read it, but it was something about the acidity of spagnum moss possibly being a hazard. Please note that I think this was probably some misinformation.

I have since tried several alternative mediums such as paper towels, none of which have worked as well as the spagnum moss.The papertowels don't stay moist for long enough no matter how thick you stack them-I think this is due to the Under Tank Heater causing it all to evaporate. And all the other stuff that I've found at pet stores got smelly or moldy in only a matter of several days. I've never heard of this eco earth. Let me know how it works.