Only healthy, sexually mature and well-fed geckos should be taken for breeding.
Males are ready to mate from the age of 4-6 months. Females are well pregnant and give healthy offspring from 1-1.5 years of age and body weight above 45g. Females may become pregnant earlier, but such early laying can be very damaging to the immature gecko body, even fatal. Therefore, the young male gecko should be kept separate from female geckos of the same age or younger. In addition, if the adult female is unwilling to mate for any reason and the male remains stubborn, very unpleasant bloody fights may occur requiring intervention.
It is highly recommended to overwinter your geckos before the breeding season. After hibernation, males are more active and females accept male courtship, continue to eat well, and continue to consume nutrients in preparation for egg laying. Female leopard geckos lay their eggs by burying them in the substrate of the moist chamber, so as the keeper, you do not need any special further terrarium adaptations.
Usually, the females are moved to the male geckos for about a week during the incubation period. If fights should start, separate the geckos. The females will not be ready to mate at that time. Wait 2-3 weeks and try again.
From experience we can say that the male should not be put in the terrarium with the female until he is very temperamental, combative and aggressive. Otherwise, if he comes to a new territory with a lot of unfamiliar smells, he will not be so confident.The female, on the other hand, will feel like she is used to it, and the contact can become gentler.
And if your male has a very calm temperament, it is better to put the female in his terrarium even before cleaning.
In our breeding there are both described types of males, they are very different and build relationships with their females differently.
The courtship process is beautiful. The male often vibrates the tip of his tail as he approaches the female (you can hear this sound). He then begins to gently and frequently nibble on her tail, back and neck. When the female accepts the male’s advances, she shows no resistance, lifting and swinging her tail to the side, allowing the male to mate with her.
Even a single mating can be enough to produce offspring. When males and females live together, they mate regularly, especially in the evening. You can tell by the characteristic vibrating sounds of the male’s tail.
If fertilization is successful, you will soon be able to see a growing pair of eggs in the female’s abdomen through the white skin. One mating is enough to fertilize all the eggs the female lays in a season. Usually from 2 to 9 pairs of eggs.
The maturation of the first pair of eggs usually takes a long time, about a month and a half, and each subsequent pair of eggs comes 2 weeks later. During pregnancy, females begin to feed heavily and take calcium, after a week or a little less they refuse to eat. 2-3 days before clutching, females begin to dig substrate in a moist chamber. Make sure that the moss in the wet chamber does not dry out and it is time to prepare the incubator!
Usually the female lays the eggs at night or early in the morning and buries them in the moss of the wet chamber. At first the eggs are moist and slightly sticky, but then they begin to dry out and stick to the bottom of the moist chamber or to each other. Carefully move the eggs into the incubator without turning them over or changing their position.
Hatching the eggs is the most important moment in leopard gecko breeding. The incubation time and sex of the future baby leopard geckos depends on the incubation temperature. So, at a temperature of:
29,5-32°С the males hatch and the incubation period is 40-55 days.
females hatch after 55-70 days at 26-28,5°C
28,5-29,5°C – males and females hatch with equal probability in 50-60 days.
Temperatures below 24°C and above 35°C are harmful to embryos if they persist for several hours.
On the second or third day of life, the baby sheds its skin and on the third day eats its first cricket. This is a physiological norm, and if it is, that’s great, feed and raise these wonderful babies and let them be healthy!
