Cute little monsters (Leopard Geckos)

Member Name: wicked_witch

Product:	Leopard Geckos
Date:	21/09/03 (18017 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: friendly, cute, easy to care for-as reptiles go

Disadvantages: still a wild animal, eats creepy crawlies

I’ve always had conflicting feelings about pet reptiles. The animal activist in me tells me it is a horrific business…pet shops selling specialised creatures to twelve year old kids who often are clueless as how to care for the poor little buggers. Then of course, there’s always the chance that Iggy the Iguana might not have come from a nice captive bred home but may have been wild caught…with all the horror that entails (It is often the case that reptiles, amphibians and birds with captive bred documents are in fact wild creatures with fake documents. The wild animal trade is too detailed to go into here, but it involves poisoning, sedating and terrorising animals, killing mothers so the babies can be taken, them cramming the little creatures five to a box about the same length as their bodies. For every one wild-caught animal on sale in a pet store, five have died in transit and the remaining one will often die of disease and trauma anyway).

Fortunately, leopard geckos, which are the number one choice for a starter herp (a herp is not an STI by the way, it’s a blanket term for reptiles and amphibians kept as a hobby), are so easy to breed in captivity that you can pretty much guarantee that your gecko is captive bred, and as a result will become much tamer than other lizards.

The other half thinks reptiles and amphibians are extremely beautiful and interesting animals to keep. I’ve managed to wriggle around this dilemma by only every buying lizards from rescue centres…this way, I’m not contributing to the international trade in endangered wild species, but I’m still getting hold of an animal I love.

A few notes on the general keeping of reptiles-gecko and non-gecko

Lizards are not like dogs, cats or mice. No matter how big their terrarium, how good your heat and lighting set-up, you cannot give a reptile the environment it would have had in the wild. It will not learn to
love you. It will at worst tolerate you and at best enjoy being handled, but it will never be a ‘pet’ animal. The best place for a reptile is running around in the wild, not trapped in a cage.

So if you really want a reptile, be it an iguana or a gecko or a pit viper, firstly, AVOID your local pet shop, or any pet shop for that matter. You will never know for certain if the animal is captive bred, and pet shops usually have no clue about how to care for such exotic creatures. Often they put two or more different kinds of herp in the same cage…they might get on ok, they might fight or they might eat each other. I have seen one Cuban milksnake attempting to eat another one in a pet shop cage. You could buy from a reputable dealer, but as is my advice with all animals, fuzzy and non, first check out your animal shelter. Hundreds of lizards are given away all the time because their owners are now bored, or cant care for them, or because Iggy has now reached six foot and is eating a mountain of cabbage a day. Phone around your local shelters to see if you can adopt a lizard, if not, check out ad papers for baby geckos on sale. Please do not buy them from a pet shop.

Which leads me on nicely to the next point…reptiles are not things, they are animals. They make look less cute than dogs, but they should not be treated with any less respect. The laws in many American states concerning mammal welfare often don’t stretch to reptiles, which mean they are open to massive abuse and neglect. Please have some consideration for them…they feel pain and fear just like your dog and they deserve respect and the best treatment they can get.

Do not buy them as a ‘fad’ pet. The latest trend seems to be the chameleon, aided by the Budweiser adverts that used to be on TV. The problem is, chameleons are among the most notoriously finicky and difficult reptiles to care for, and completely unsuitable for the virgin r
eptile owner. Do not assume they can all be treated the same way. Some are vegetarian; some eat insects, some mice. They need different temperatures and light sources from each other, and some have to be kept alone, others prefer lizard mates. Read up on your chosen species until you know everything you need to know. Right, rant over, ethics aside, here’s my experience of keeping leopard geckos and how to look after them…



Choosing a gecko

The usual rules of animal buying apply here. The cage with the animals for sale should be clean, of a good size and well kept and it goes without saying there should be no dead animals in the cage. The skin of the lizard should be clean, clear, free of spots, abscesses and bites, and should not be excessively wrinkled (this suggests starvation). Make sure the belly is, in particular, free of burns. There should be no evidence of dried waste around the backside of the lizard either…this is very important as it suggests parasites. Of course all limbs, toes and tails should be intact with no nicks or cuts. Check there are no hard knots in the legs, this suggests either calcium deficiency or broken bones. No hip or backbones should be visible, tails should be thick. The eyes, nose and mouth should be clear and clean. If you can convince the gecko to open its mouth, it should be pink, not greyish pink or pale, and there should be no white, yellow or green patches. If the reptile doesn’t resist when you move its limbs, it is very sick indeed. If there are any black, brown or orangish moving dots on the gecko it has mites.

Housing

My rule of thumb is the bigger then better when keeping anything in a cage, and never choose a tank smaller than 20 gallons for a single gecko. 25-30 is suitable for a pair. Glass tanks are better than plastic in my opinion, because they don’t scratch so easily, hold the temperature easier and just look better. You can pick up an old aqu
arium in a car boot sale…it doesn’t matter if there is a leak in the tank because you aint keeping fish! You can also get special tanks for herps Tanks in themselves generally aren’t too expensive anyway, it’s the lighting and heating that tends to be the bigger problem when it comes to geckos. Make sure the tank has a tight fitting lid. While leopard geckos don’t have the special toe-pads that most geckos have, which means they can cling to everything, including glass, they are still quite little Houdini’s, so a snug lid is essential.

Substrate

In other words, the floor covering of the cage. First of all, you are probably best to stay away from sawdust and wood shavings, as geckos commonly swallow them, and this can be fatal. A mixture of sand and heavy peat is another choice, and this looks attractive, although again, there is a smaller but still possible chance of the gecko accidentally swallowing it. Many keepers use plain paper or newspaper, some use carpet…which I don’t recommend as it is difficult to clean. Another choice, strange as it may sound, would be Astroturf. I housed mine in sand without too many problems however.

Cage fittings

You may make the setup of the cage as elaborate as you like. Real or fake soft woods add an attractive ‘natural’ edge to the cage…however you will need to soak any woods taken from outdoors because of the possibility of bugs in them. Real or fake plants and rocks can also be used, but the geckos will climb and try to dismantle them so make sure they are sturdy, also make sure all wood and greens in the cage are made from non-poisonous plants…geckos are carnivores but you can never be too safe. Water should be provided in a shallow, but heavy, dish, and must be changed daily, and the dish scrubbed with animal-safe disinfectants. Geckos are really drip-feeders, that is, they often lap water from leaves in the wild, so they
might enjoy the odd misting of the cage with a plant-mister. Very important is one or more ‘basking spots’ for the lizards to soak up heat on…these should be placed near the heater and there should be enough so that the lizards aren’t competing for space.

Feeding

Here comes the icky bit. When I first decided I would like a reptile, I asked the nice lady at the animal shelter if I could have a vegetarian one as I didn’t fancy feeding it day-old chicks and baby mice. Much to my dismay I learned the vegetarian lizards were usually the big ones…such as the green iguana who clocks in at six feet.

Leopard geckos, being fairly small, do not eat rats or mice, although the larger ones will accept pinkies (day-old mice). You can get these poor creatures frozen from your larger pet shop. You need to thaw them before you feed them to the geckos, but to be honest with leopard geckos it isn’t really necessary. Now for more ick…they eat insects. The two most common reptile food insects are mealworms and crickets, both of which are available from pet stores. You can buy them, as they are needed, which is what I did with mine, or get some and breed them. This is a much cheaper course of action, but depends on you being able to stomach having a tank-full of creepy crawlies in your home…and also bear in mind the consequences if there should be an insect escape.

A word about mealworms. These are often touted as the perfect food for lizards, but in reality you are better with crickets…mealworms have an extremely tough outer skin (which I think is known as chitin), which is indigestible and stays in the lizards gut. Living off these will kill a gecko; so as a rule don’t feed them too often.

Geckos will also accept king mealworms (a better choice as they have less chitin), wax-worms and even earthworms, plus any creepies you might find roaming your house…flies, spide
rs, moths and the like. All food should be dusted with a special vitamin supplement you can buy from pet shops, and must be placed live the gecko’s cage or he won’t eat them. Baby geckos should be fed daily, as they get larger, they might prefer to be fed less often, or they may still want daily feeding. As a rule, feed four live food items per gecko per day.

Light and heat

Geckos are nocturnal so do not need any form of UV lighting in their cage, in fact it will probably distress them. However an incandescent can actually be used to heat the tank as well, if it is kept in a reflector, it should also be well out of the geckos reach so they cant get burnt. Geckos require a temperature of around 85 degrees F. placing the heat source to one side of the cage is a good idea as a heat gradient will occur and allow the geckos to cool down a little by going to the other end of the cage. Aside from bulb heating, you can get special heat mats, which go underneath the substrate. There should be a few inches of substrate between these and the geckos, and it is often hard to regulate the heat with these because of the awkward position. Also, the mats don’t provide a gradient so light heating is probably best. You can also get special ‘hot rocks’, which do pretty much what they say on the tin, but by all means steer clear of these because they often overheat and burn the lizard. Also, lizards have different ways of sensing temperature, and they relate to the top side of the body, the one that would be in contact with the sun, so as they have none of these ‘receptors’ on the lower body, they can literally fry themselves on these rocks without even noticing. All in all, bulb heating is probably the best way to go. Invest in a thermometer, which can be stuck to the cage to make sure the temperature is suitable.

Handling

As I’ve said, geckos don’t bite unless provoked (and I mean SEVERELY prov
oked, they’re the chilled stoners of the reptiles world) so you wont need gloves to handle them. Chances are, if you’ve followed my advice and gone to a breeder and not a pet shop, your gecko will be tame already. When you first get them, allow them a few days to get used to your hands in and out of the cage, and then pick it up around the middle. It is bound to scamper about at first, but with regular handling it will enjoy being held. Notes of caution though…leave its tail WELL alone and never grab on to it. Leopard geckos are capable of dropping their tails. It will grow a new one but it wont be as nice as the first.

Signs or sickness

As I’ve said, geckos are remarkably hardy, but if they should become shaky or sluggish you have a problem. When reptiles get sick they tend to become stationary, although the problem might be temperature related, so try upping the heat a degree. If this doesn’t work, find a vet who specialises in herps and make it snappy.

The pros of keeping geckos-

If you are intent on keeping a lizard, a gecko is the best bet because-

It is very hardy and can withstand things that other lizards couldn’t…but nonetheless it should have the best care you can give it.

They are cheap and readily available.

They are so easy to breed that no one really bothers catching wild ones so you don’t need to worry whether or not your gecko is wild caught.

Being the most common pet lizard, your average vet will probably know enough about them to help if something goes wrong.

They have become virtually tame, or as tame as such a creature could be. They very seldom bite and don’t mind human handling.

Of course, being non-venomous and small, they are fairly harmless…do remember however, that lizards often carry salmonella, so wash you hands before and after handling it. They also, unlike most animals carry a lot of dis
eases that humans CAN contract. Take your new pet to a specialist vet to see that it is in good health.

They really are very cute as far as cold-blooded things go.


The cons of keeping geckos

Having to keep crickets and mealworms in the house isn’t fun…your mum/dad/spouse/flatmate probably will not be impressed

You’re still keeping what is essentially a wild creature. You can recreate its natural habitat as much as you are able, but it will never be the same.

Buying them from a pet-shop encourages a multi-million pound trade in which live creatures are treated as inanimate objects.

In conclusion…

To be honest they are quite lovely little things. They may not learn to love you but they will learn to like you (even if its just because you’re the cricket-dispensing-machine) and get along fine with you. I’m still in mixed feelings about the trade in animals, which in general aren’t suitable as pets, but geckos seem to be the ones that do quite well in captivity. If your planning on buying something slightly scalier and scarier than a kitten, I’d go for a gecko, you wont find a better starter lizard anywhere.

Summary: