caresheet

Choosing a leopard gecko: First you have to look for a healthy gecko that is very active(make sure it moves or gets spooked when you go to pick the gecko up) , has clear eyes, and smooth skin. Make sure the gecko has all toes and fingers. Check for any wounds or paristes on the geckos skin (ask the pet store/breeder your buying from why the gecko has these)(and dont buy them if it has any sign of disease). Ask the person you are buying the gecko from to see it eat, make sure it has an appitite. The geckos tail should be fat and not pencile thin unless you are buying a baby leopard. Baby leopard geckos have dark bands around their body, and have little to no spotting, a five month old leo wil have many spots and small to no bands on its skin. I recomend for every one to buy from a breeder not from a pet store, unless you really trust the people that work there and the animals health.

Pricing: Geckos get sold from a wide range of prices form $25 for normal phase to $1000 for extreemly rare morphs and color phases, wether you buy form a breeder or a pet store. Babies are usawally much cheaper than adults in most cases. You can buy a normal phase babie gecko for around $25-$40 from a breeder, but at pet stores they uswally charge more for a gecko, and you will get a better, cheaper, and healthier gecko from a breeder than you would from a pet store.

Feeding: You can serve your gecko many different types of food. Crickets (the most comonley fed to leopard geckos), mealworms (also very common), pinkies (should be searved as a treat to your geckos, and only fed at the most once a month), wax worms (a fatty worm fed to geckos also for treats), and super worms (two times as large as mealworms). Crickets are the most commonly fed food to leopard geckos, the geckos head should be bigger than the crickets bodie, when feeding. The crickets fed to your gecko(s) should gut loaded with cricket food and water. And should be dusted with calcium D/3 supplement. I use zoomed Calcium D/3 supplemant, but there are many different brands out there, you can find them on the internet or at your local pet store that has reptile suppleys. (some cricket food: potaoes, carrots, most any vegi. I use fluckers cricket water cricket food, with a few sclices of potatoes. Babies should have 2-5 pin-heads or 1/4 size every day until they are 1 year old(you may skip a day or two occasionaly). Adults should have them every other day or every couple days, they should be 2/3 to 3/4 size. Pinkies should be fed to gravid females about once a month (feeding pinkies is not nesesary). Mealworms should be in your leopard geckos aquarium at all times in a small dish of calcium corbanate D/3, the geckos will often get hungrey and you won't be around to feed them so place a small dish in the tank with D/3 and about 10-15 mealworms. Wax worms should be fed as a treat, and only fed to yor geckos about 3-6 times a week at the max 6! and usawally only fed to gravid females (skip a week when feeding wax worms as treats). Super worms are big meal worms and should only be fed to your geckos as a treat and not as much as meal worms.

Equipment/Supplies/Tank Setup: For the tank you should use a 10 gal glass tank with screen lid (for only one gecko). The tank should have a two hide boxes one humid hide( the humid hide can have moised moss, or moised vermiculite in it), and one dry hide box. (you can make an easy dry hide box by just taking a plastic bowl and cutting a 1"(^)by1(>) and a half inch hole on the rim and flipping it over so your gecko can sleep)(or you can by a pre-made hide box at your local reptile supplies store.). You should then have a water dish. about 1" to a half inch deep(just not to deep so the gecko can swim in it.). Fill that with water (prefrebaly purified water). The water dish should be cleaned at given fresh water ever day or every other day. You will also need some logs or drift wood in the tank, so that your geckos can climb on them. You will now need a light source, I use a UVB black light on top of the tank on at all times. The temps should be about 84 degrees F-90 degrees F during the day time and in the mid to high 70's at night. You can use many different types of substrate; commercial sand, paper towel, newspaper, and calcium carbonate. Using the calci-carbinate, and the commercial sand can lead to impaction. The easiest would be the paper towel, its alot less naural but it works. For babies you have to use paper towel not sand. The babies will easelie ingest the sand and get impaction while hunting for prey. Leopard geckos are very clean animals and will poop or goto the bathroom in the same spot at all times. You should clean the stool out every day to every other day.

Shedding: Your gecko sheds. They accually eat the skin when they are pulling it off, so dont stop them from eating eat. Your gecko can get skin disease lose toes, and tail tips. This is why you need the humid hide box for your gecko. This helps them get the skin off of their body. If the humid hide box is not working and your gecko is not getting all of its skin off you will then have to get it off for it; useing a shallow bowl of warm water and a dampend Q-tip you can get the skin off by just rubbing the tip on the spots were the geckos skin is left.

Handling: You can handle your gecko. This is the best way to get your gecko to start getting used to you. To handle your leopard gecko you first start slowly petting it, be slow and gentle when you are handling the gecko. The easiest way to get the gecko on your hand is to hold it out in the ground, palm up and pet its tail alittle bit so it walks onto your hand. Do not pull or grab your geckos tail in any way! It will drop its tail!! The tail will grow back but it will not look as nice as the original tail looked. Some tails get deformed and mis-shaped when growing back. So please do not pull or grab your geckos tail in any way it will drop it. But instead you can gentley pet it. Dnot be worried if the gecko hisse's at you when you try icking it up, it is just a defense like when it drops its tail. It wont hiss once you get used to it and it gets used to you handling it. Dont over handle your gecko. About once a week is good. If you over handle the gecko, it will get stressed out and will likley need vetrenarie attention.