aschnell
New member
Hey everyone, just wanted to share my story about Edgar Machuca of GeckoGen and the wonderful business transactions we've had together as well as talk about a huge personal favor he did for me regarding my exotic New Caledonian gecko collection.
I first met Edgar at the San Jose Reptile Expo last summer and we immediately got to talking about geckos at a few different times during the show. Edgar bought a few of the animals I brought to sell that day and I think I bought one from him as well. In any case he was extremely pleasant to deal with, highly professional, and very personable. All his animals were fat and healthy, and the adults he brought to the show were all HUGE! It was obvious he took great care of them, and not a single tail missing out of 100+ geckos that he had brought to the show! Wow!
Having been in the gecko community for quite some time I was surprised I hadn't heard of Edgar before, but after talking I learned that with 500+ New Caledonian geckos in his collection (at the time) he just didn't really have the time for online sales and preferred vending various local shows to sell his animals, which is why I hadn't heard of him before.
After the show Edgar and I kept in touch, and as it turned out he lived in Campbell, CA - a town right next to mine! I invited him over to see my collection and we geeked out about geckos for several hours while I showed him all of my animals. He ended up purchasing several more animals from me at that time as well. After a while Edgar invited me to his house as well, during which time he showed me some of his choice projects that he had been working on for many years - and WOW was I impressed. The most impressive thing is that he produced all of the color patterns and morphs that he is now working with which he created completely independently through ~10 years of selective breeding. These projects include animals like neon cream red harlequins, orange tiger super dalmatians, neon cream & jet black extreme harlequins with white spots, yellow reverse pinstripes, reds with killer structure and white portholes and white lips, etc. Those aren't easy morphs to produce when you start with very basic crested gecko morphs which are only F3-F5 animals!
Anyway, three months ago I decided to take an offer for an organic farming internship on the big island of Hawaii but had no idea about what I would do with my ~$25,000 collection of animals. I talked to Edgar about my dilemma and he offered to care for my collection of 100+ geckos for three months while I was in Hawaii - no small task considering he is a full time molecular biologist and at this point already had 600+ of his own animals with ~600-700 more animals expected to hatch during the season! I moved all of my animals (racks and all) into his gecko room, left him with my care instructions and habits as well as some CGD (aka gecko food) and took off for Hawaii. Three months later I came back to find all of my animals in perfect health, many high end hatchlings and a bunch of healthy eggs from the end of the season! Obviously I was ecstatic and thanked Edgar profusely for all of his time and energy spent caring for my animals in such a loving manner - especially since he essentially spent all of his free time caring for an extra 100+ animals that weren't even his! I left him with a few trendy geckos as a "thank-you" gift - geckos that you'll be seeing a lot of in the future if you're into breeding New Caledonian geckos.
Anyway, I could go on forever about how great Edgar is (and everyone else at GeckoGen too - that means you Jeff!) but I'd be writing here forever. My final point will be that Edgar's animals speak for themselves. They're some of the healthiest, biggest, and most productive geckos I've ever seen and Edgar has some of the best husbandry techniques in the industry! You won't be sorry if you buy from GeckoGen, and I'd put money on that statement any day.
I first met Edgar at the San Jose Reptile Expo last summer and we immediately got to talking about geckos at a few different times during the show. Edgar bought a few of the animals I brought to sell that day and I think I bought one from him as well. In any case he was extremely pleasant to deal with, highly professional, and very personable. All his animals were fat and healthy, and the adults he brought to the show were all HUGE! It was obvious he took great care of them, and not a single tail missing out of 100+ geckos that he had brought to the show! Wow!
Having been in the gecko community for quite some time I was surprised I hadn't heard of Edgar before, but after talking I learned that with 500+ New Caledonian geckos in his collection (at the time) he just didn't really have the time for online sales and preferred vending various local shows to sell his animals, which is why I hadn't heard of him before.
After the show Edgar and I kept in touch, and as it turned out he lived in Campbell, CA - a town right next to mine! I invited him over to see my collection and we geeked out about geckos for several hours while I showed him all of my animals. He ended up purchasing several more animals from me at that time as well. After a while Edgar invited me to his house as well, during which time he showed me some of his choice projects that he had been working on for many years - and WOW was I impressed. The most impressive thing is that he produced all of the color patterns and morphs that he is now working with which he created completely independently through ~10 years of selective breeding. These projects include animals like neon cream red harlequins, orange tiger super dalmatians, neon cream & jet black extreme harlequins with white spots, yellow reverse pinstripes, reds with killer structure and white portholes and white lips, etc. Those aren't easy morphs to produce when you start with very basic crested gecko morphs which are only F3-F5 animals!
Anyway, three months ago I decided to take an offer for an organic farming internship on the big island of Hawaii but had no idea about what I would do with my ~$25,000 collection of animals. I talked to Edgar about my dilemma and he offered to care for my collection of 100+ geckos for three months while I was in Hawaii - no small task considering he is a full time molecular biologist and at this point already had 600+ of his own animals with ~600-700 more animals expected to hatch during the season! I moved all of my animals (racks and all) into his gecko room, left him with my care instructions and habits as well as some CGD (aka gecko food) and took off for Hawaii. Three months later I came back to find all of my animals in perfect health, many high end hatchlings and a bunch of healthy eggs from the end of the season! Obviously I was ecstatic and thanked Edgar profusely for all of his time and energy spent caring for my animals in such a loving manner - especially since he essentially spent all of his free time caring for an extra 100+ animals that weren't even his! I left him with a few trendy geckos as a "thank-you" gift - geckos that you'll be seeing a lot of in the future if you're into breeding New Caledonian geckos.
Anyway, I could go on forever about how great Edgar is (and everyone else at GeckoGen too - that means you Jeff!) but I'd be writing here forever. My final point will be that Edgar's animals speak for themselves. They're some of the healthiest, biggest, and most productive geckos I've ever seen and Edgar has some of the best husbandry techniques in the industry! You won't be sorry if you buy from GeckoGen, and I'd put money on that statement any day.
