pictus gecko breeding

silent_truth · 03-29-04, 05:44 PM

I'm not sure if there is any exact number for an answer to this question, but how many eggs should one allow a female pictus to lay before the male is separated in order to give her a break?

Thanks,

-Adam

Betty Miskie · 03-31-04, 01:48 PM

We bought two pictus at the Nov. show and they were approx. 3 weeks old. We had no idea what sex they were and when we realized at around 2 1/2 months we thought we had a male and female. Two weeks later our female started laying eggs. We immediately removed the male from her tank. She has and is continuing laying eggs and she is only 5 months old now. We can not seem to get her stop laying. She has given us 22 eggs and now 3 eggs have hatched with more to come. When someone says they are prolific they mean it.
I hope this answers your question.
Betty

silent_truth · 03-31-04, 03:57 PM

Thanks very much for the info! 22 eggs! That's amazing!

-Adam

Betty Miskie · 03-31-04, 05:41 PM

No problem! We really had no intentions of having our female lay eggs at that age. We bought two more pictus and separated them at a very early age to make sure that did not happen again but to be very honest, our female pictus that layed (laying) all the eggs, she is very healthy looking. I sure did not want to jeopardize her life by starting so young, we separated her after her first clutch and she is still going strong.
Betty

Stockwell · 03-31-04, 05:59 PM

I used to breed those guys too, or I should say they bred themselves, and I kept them until I just couldn't deal with it anymore.
I got eggs every 8-10 days.. It's truly amazing.

It's a great species for honing the ol' egg hatching skills, experimenting with different incubator mediums,etc. etc....
or if you enjoy micro Omlettes... LOL

But, I ended up giving mine away as they really eat more in food then they are worth.
Also females will eventually die prematurely unless they have lots of calcium supplements. They should have a dish of cuttlebone or Rep-cal, at all times, and in addition they should have dusted crickets .
I found they were prone to rickets, and lost a few that weren't getting enough calcium. Their spine evetually kinks.
Cooling them down, and limiting food, will eventually shut them off egg laying, but it takes a while.