my friend needs some help

[mardithepanther]

Hello,

I personally don't own a gecko but my friend is thinking about getting a Crested and he needs all the help he can get. The essentials and more!

 

[fluxlizard]

I used to breed these, and their requirements are incredibly simple compared to most lizards.

They do great at room temperature, so no extra heat is required, they don't need special lights either because they are nocturnal.

They grow and breed and do great on the commercially available crested gecko diets.

They do like a little humidity- I kept potted pothos vines in with mine so they could climb in the vines and also for humidity. I would spray these lightly in the evening about the time the geckos were waking so they would have a little more humidity during the night.

I provided cork bark tubes for hiding in during the day and climbing on at night.

I also gave a small bowl of water which they used along with the mist and the moisture from the commercial diet.

That's really about it- they are the easiest lizards to keep and breed, and are tame and easy to handle and some are just beautiful colors.

 

[mardithepanther]

ok great thank you. and what about flooring? do they need any substrate? like coco husk or eco earth? what can they eat? how much? how often?

 

[fluxlizard]

I used paper towels for substrate.

They do poop a fair bit and it just made cleanup easier. I wiped down enclosures and changed substrate every 2 or 3 days.

Also I was breeding and wanted to control where they laid their eggs, so I used 5" pots for the pothos vines and that was the only soil so they always laid in the pots. (Actually I had an inch or two of peat moss on top of the soil in the pots and this layer is where they dug and laid). It was easy to tell when a group had a female lay because they would toss dirt out of the pot onto the paper towels when they dug their shallow nests. This made egg collection easy to do and easy to know when to collect (I had about 20 trios going).

For food, I just used a couple of the commercial foods for crested geckos. Worked great for me, and I'd recommend it. Babies grew into breeding healthy adults on the commercial diets no problem. If your friend wants, occasional crickets or other insects, well ripened fruit, a little honey will all be appreciated for treats.

 

[kinyonga]

These might help...
http://www.rhacscanada.ca/Forum/Contest/GeneralCare3.pdf

http://www.bansishah.com/assets/Shah_et_al_2003_ [sociality in lizards]_Behaviour.pdf

 

[mardithepanther]

thanks for the great advice. would it be good advice to tell him to feed it whatever it can eat in 6 minutes? and do you still need to gut load?