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Breeding ?'s Exp Breeders PLEASE Help

mamille

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I have successfully bred,incubated, hatched, raised and sold leos but I have some Huge ?'s. How long do I shorten the photoperiod to 10hrs a day for? Do I pull my males for the duration of this time. I have heard 4 weeks, 2 months, 3 months, what is the consenus. I am breeding med-high end geckos and I really don't want to mess up my first off-season. Thanks Mark Miller Southsidegeckos
 
well...

Mark, you are going to get a lot of different opinions from breeders, and you should keep in mind that nothing is carved in stone. We give our opinions/advise based on what works for us.

I keep my breeding colonies together 24/7/365, and do not manipulate the light or heat in any way to induce breeding or cooling off. They just seem to cool themselves. They know when the days become shorter by the natural photocycle of the sunlight through the window. I do not adjust the UTH temps, and ambient room temperatures are around 78-80 in the summer and about 68-70 in the winter.

The only time I remove a gecko from it's breeding group is when the females are getting stressed from pressure from the male. If it is only one female, I take her out until she stabilizes... if it's all of the females, then I remove the male for a few weeks. This has worked for me for almost 10 years, so I have no reason to try anything different!
 
Im no expert but this works for me

I do not turn the heat up or down or anything. I also dont mess with the lighting. I do however remove each female when they are gravid and keep them in their own enclosure until they lay. I do this just incase the eggs get trampled or rolled around by the cage mates. The leos seem to take a breeding break on there own it seems like. If the females lose to much weight after breeding I also put them separate until they gain most of it back but they usualy dont lose very much. Ive seen people say thay theyve had leos weight 85grams and then weigh 50 after breeding that seems like a huge weight loss but as I said Im no expert so maybe its normal. Mine lose around 10-15 grams I would say give or take a few grams. The leos notice the temp. change just from the ouside temps. so they do cool down a little but its nothing I do to them. They seem to do fine this way to. They also seem to eat all through the winter but I did notice a slight decrease in their eating habits. They also seem to be a little less active but not much. Ive heard that leos will do fine with no light source at all but Im not sure about this ,anyone know? Im not sure about what is scientificaly correct for everything but from what Ive read and heard and like Marcia said its a matter of opinion. Its worked for me so far so I guess Ill keep using the method Im using. I have some males in with a few of my females but they dont seem to be courting from what Ive seen and I always check each female for eggs when I hold them. Most of leos always want to be held so they can roam around the house but I have 1 male that is the meanest leo Ive ever seen, thats why I named him jaws he has the temperment of a Tokay no joking. I would also like to hear of what other peoples methods are and if what Im doing is right or wrong. Its worked for me so far but if Im doing anything wrong Id like to know to avoid any problems in the future.
 
I own a small collection of turtles and a tortoise most of which are housed with my leos, so the room is rather bright with the turtles and tortoise enclosures having 2 or more lighting systems each. In the summer I have the lights on 13-14 hours a day. Last winter I had my lights on 7am-5pm I’ve already started to turn my lights off about 3 minutes later than usual to try and replicate outside photoperiod. The temps last year weren’t changed the thermostats where still set to 90 but the ambient temp dropped significantly as Marcia’s. My leos where less active and hungry but everything seemed fine come late February I raised the lighting again. This year will likely be much the same I might not have the lighting to 10 hours till late January this year do.
Xavier
 
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