Caresheet

It’s time to Gecko-ing!

Prior to purchasing an animal, you will want to do your research.  Once your new reptilian friend arrives, your animal will require some time to settle into the security of her new home.   You can make food available right away, and even handle animal for a few minutes prior to rehoming. 

Your new animal will love to experience a variety of feeder insects over their lifetime, so offering things like waxworms, crickets, roaches, and hornworms will help provide a well-balanced health-span.  

The staple diet has been large mealworms with a supplement of 60% Vionate (multivitamin) and 40% Osteo-Form SA (calcium). This supplement mix is used by many top breeders across the world, and I recommend it highly (available on amazon). Calcium & a multivitamin are key to good overall health. As long as mix is available in dish, the animal will lap up as needed. We use rainbowmealworms.net to obtain our feeder insects & spill-proof dishes (worth it to keep insects from nibbling your animals tasty bits). 

Use a water dish, as opposed to misting the walls.  We recently switched from tap water to purified bottled water.   Cleaning all surface features weekly will help keep your animal alert & active, and reduce risk of problems.  After the rigors of shipping, it can take a few weeks for your animal to adjust to new home and resume eating schedule.  This is normal, and they have plenty of fat reserves to get them thru this transition.

Maintaining a hotspot of 92-95 degrees is key to proper digestion and ensures a solid feeding response. This is because the thermal energy provided by a heatmat, heatrock, or heattape directly aids in proper digestion.  If this heat is not available, then the animal will not be able to metabolize its meal – throwing up the contents in a football of twisted worms, and then refuse to eat until heat is available.  Overhead lighting is only needed when you want to enjoy your setup; Do not use heatlamps - Only Bellyheat.  I recommend buying a temp gun to pinpoint exact temp of hotspot. Anything between 90-95 degrees is fine, but if you are trying to trigger feeding response, the warmer end of this spectrum is better.

For optimal growth, keep individually. This decreases the stress on the animal, as they won’t be walking on one another, scratching each other up with their tiny claws as they explore every corner of their enclosure each night. This also decreases the likelihood of injuries occurring, such as tail-loss.  I recommend waiting until adulthood, before integrating females into a breeder group.  Once fully grown, 2-5 females can be housed together with good results.

If you have received an albino, they do have a sensitivity to light. So they will squint during the day or under bright lights. This is normal and does not affect their ability to find food and thrive – as they are nocturnal and hunt at nighttime. Just be aware they will be uncomfortable if you decide to do an outdoor photoshoot or visit the surface of the sun.

Top 6 Tips to growing geckos optimally ツ

1) Keep individually
2) Ensure 92-95 degree hotspot with Temp Gun
3) Clean all surface features weekly
4) Gutload your feeder insects
5) Use a multivitamin & calcium supplement
6) Provide water in a dish (not mist on walls)

There are, of course, many more things you can do to increase growth curve. Handling your animal for a few minutes a day, may be the most powerful tool for brain growth and enrichment.

 Top 3 priorities when breeding geckos ツ

1)    Outbreed

2)    Only breed big females (12 months+ and 65+ grams)

3)    Do not cross albino strains, enigma x enigma, or WY x WY. 

The industry has set an arbitrary standard to keep the 3 strains of albinos separate.  Crossing the strains will result in what people dismiss as ‘mutts’.  No harmful mutations will be inherited, but if you wish to produce breeder quality animals then you will want to maintain this industry standard.   Crossing Enigma x Enigma or WY x WY, by contrast, can result in harmful mutations that affect the well-being of offspring.  Optimal crosses consist of two individuals from two different populations.   This is the recipe for creating offspring with the best possible fitness. Our raison d'être at Art Geckos is genetic diversity.

Thanks again for reading!  Feel free to reach out if you ever have any questions.

 Best,

Ben Bargen

Art Geckos 

This is a typical setup for one baby:

A six quart tub with tray hide, 3/4oz H20 dish, feeding dish with multivitamin & calcium, and paper towel substrate.

Simple but effective. They receive backheat at 93 degrees - and a few medium mealworms are added within 24 hours of hatching.

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