Unlike many breeders who have more livestock and therefore keep their geckos and offspring in their basement in practical plastic shoe boxes regulated by heat tape, for me it was important to integrate my pets in the living-room sphere, wherefore the optical appeal of the cage played a role.

My geckos are "part of the family," and share the living space!

I have my cages made according to my demands by Custom Wood Reptile Cage Company, who also have an eBay store. Their cages look beautiful, are stackable, and can be ordered in different stains to fit the furniture. My cages are a roomy 48x18x18 inches, have plexi glass windows on the front and the sides, and mesh on the top. I actually have three separate cages on each side of the living-room, which are divided by a spacer open in the back for air supply and maintenance (such as replacing burnt-out light bulbs).

I separate the geckos according to morphs and breeder groups. Of course, each cage only contains ONE MALE! (Males cannot be housed together; they would fight and kill each other).

Breeder cage I houses:

Top cage:        the Reverse Stripe, Bold Stripe breeding group (alpha male: Alex)

Middle cage:    on the left: Emerine Reverse Stripe and Enigma breeding group (alpha male: Andiamo)

                      on the right: Tremper Albino and Enigma breeding group (alpha male: Nikita)

Bottom cage:  Red Stripe Bell breeding group (alpha male: Ruben)

Breeder cage II houses:

Top cage:        on the left: Stripe Mack Snow breeding group (alpha male: Santiago)

                      on the right: Mack Snow Enigma females

Middle cage:    on the left: females only (for sale)

                      on the right: Rainwater Breeding group (alpha male: Valerian)

Bottom cage:  on the left: Carrot Tail breeding group (alpha male: Fridolin)

                      on the right: Reverse Stripe Eclipse/Afghan group (alpha male: Thorben)

Breeder cage III houses:

On the left:     High Contrast Tremper breeding group (alpha male: Lester)

On the right:   Emerine, Electric Jello breeding group (alpha male: Benjamin)

Breeder cage IV houses:

Top cage:        on the left: Lindy (Lester's son; white/orange High Contrast Tremper Albino)

                     on the right: Romeo (HISS Electric Tang) and Juliet (brightalbino Tang)

Middle cage:   female offspring (holdbacks) from Lester and Andiamo

Bottom cage:  Diablo Blanco / Red Stripe breeding groups 

On the left:     Jungle Tremper/Diablo Blanco breeding group (alpha male: Onwuegbuzie)

On the right:   Red Stripe Enigma breeding group (alpha male: Reikjavik)

Baby and quarantine racks:

Under Tank Heaters (UTH)

I buy my under tank heaters from http://www.onestopfishshop.com and am very satisfied with their excellent customer service. The price for a Zoo Med ReptiTherm (small) for a 10 gallon tank is $13.29. You can't beat that price! I buy from them through Amazon.com.

 

 

Background, Driftwood, and Plants

 

Apart from natural driftwood, I use a few artificial plants from Doctors Foster and Smith, and bromeliads from the eBay store of Bromeliads R Us. One needs to spray the bromeliads with water containing fertilizer about twice a week. They are unharmlful to the lizards, and look great giving the terrain a natural touch.

  

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Substrate, Bedding, Flooring, Rocks, Slates, and Waterfall

 

As substrate, I use clay-fired hydroculture balls covered with slates in the adult cage, and paper towel in the baby cages. You can get them from Amazon.com. They are called "hydroton." This is what they look like (pictures from Amazon.com):

In the baby and juvenile cages I don't have anything the little ones could swallow; their humid hides contain paper towels instead of vermiculite.

I used to have wood chips (the big ones that cannot be swallowed) as substrate in the adult cages; however, if mealworms escape, they florish and multiply in there, and in a few weeks you'll have lots of black beetles running around in your cage. I won't recommend it. It looks nice, but you're not only breeding geckos -- you're breeding insects!!

 

The adult cage has a Medium Exo Terra Waterfall, which I leveled with a piece of wood so it would not leak. It has to be cleaned out periodically, because crickets tend to hide and drown in there. The mist delivers the humidity necessary for unproblematic shedding. However, the water in the fountain gets quite hot due to the fogger and pump, so the geckos need an additional still water drinking bowl. They like to climb the waterfall, but I never saw them drinking the warm water!

 

I don't use the big gray water fall any more, since it made slimy hot water the geckos wouldn't drink. It also took up too much space.

 

Substrate, Bedding, Flooring, Rocks, Slates, and Waterfall

  

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Caves, Food and Water Dishes

 

As to hiding places, LZRDGRL's geckos have the medium-sized ZooMed Repti Shelter 3-in-1 Cave, which is easy to clean because one can lift off the lid. Below, you see Kira retreating into her shelter for shedding. Her skin is already peeled off from her nose. Her cave which is under a heat lamp is kept slightly moist to aid in shedding. The shelter is filled with wood chips. Moss works fine, too.

 

Caves, Food and Water Dishes

 

For egg-laying, the female breeder geckos have a transparent plastic deli cup filled with moist paper towels.

 

The baby geckos have an artificial Zilla Stump Den (medium) to play in, as well as half a coco nut dome to climb under. 

 

The food and water dishes are from Exo Terra and can be purchased from different sources, for example PETCO.

 

 

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Gecko Food and Treats

 

I get my mealworms from http://vita-mealie.weebly.com/, and my geckos and I are highly satisfied. Below, you can see their mission statement:

 

Camillies Vita-mealies®-Live mealworms

NEED! WANT! GET!:   NEED mealworms for your pet, but don't want to have to get thousands and thousands like these big mealworm farms require you to purchase at a minimum? WANT a  plump & juicy, lively mealworm grown in a clean environment, and fed all-organic, healthy ingredients for your pets well-being, yet don't want to  pay astronomical shipping prices to get them delivered? Then you have come to the right website to GET exactly that!!  We sell quantities from 300 count  to 10,000 count.  And not only at great prices, BUT with FREE Priority 2-3 day shipping too ...NO HIDDEN CHARGES!  You can't get much simpler than that!  Mealworms enhanced with a vitamin and mineral KICK for your pets well-being... at a price you can afford! THAT'S VITA-MEALIES®-NATURALLY~

I buy my crickets and waxworms (also called "butter worms") from http://www.timberlinefisheries.com/default.htm at Marion, IL. This is where my local PETCO store gets them from; just I get them young and fresh, and not from PETCO's fridge from long-term storage! Sometimes, I drive there, which takes me less than an hour, but I also have a regular weekly shipment right to my door of crickets and waxworms for about USD 53 (this is for 70+ geckos!). 

 

A feast for geckos are wax worms; they are soft and don't have a hard shell like mealworms or superworms. Especially the juvies like them. Consider them a TREAT ONLY, because they are very fattening! Since I don't want to fatten the geckos up, they get wax worms very rarely and live mostly of crickets they have to hunt. Adult geckos eat every other day, and should get 5-12 pieces of food each feeding time - but how do you control that if they hunt down their meal? I let them eat as much as they want every other day or every third day. Babies and juvies should eat daily. You can pretty much tell by a nice fat tail that they are well nourished, since they store fat in their tails, like camels in their humps. If they develop pouches or pockets under their armpit, that's where they store minerals, so there's nothing to worry about; it is not a disease but a sign of being well-nourished and having good reserves for bad times (such as breeding, which takes a lot out of a gecko).

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Cricket Food

 

In order to keep the live crickets happy that do not get immediately eaten in the cage, I deposit some dry dog and cat treats as well as commercial cricket food among the driftwood. Only healthy, well-nourished crickets offer the lizards a good meal. When they go hungry, they start to attack each other. I've also seen them try to eat the mealworms in the food dish. The crickets themselves should be dusted with vitamin powder or calcium (I take it in turns) before being fed to the geckos.

 

 

 

My crickets are kept in a high, escape-proof trash can, and their food consists of commercial cricket food as well as fresh salad leaves, carrots, cherry tomatoes, and ground grains (human "ecological" food -- it's far cheaper than mealworm bedding and commercial cricket food made of the same grains).

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Shipping

The animals are shipped in deli cups appropriate for their sizes, in insulated styrofoam boxes and with cold/heat packs, if applicable.

I use Ship Your Reptiles. I am also willing to drive up to two hours in my buyer's direction (St. Louis, MO area; Paducah, KY area). Buyers can also pick up a gecko in Carbondale, IL, at a meeting place agreed upon.

I am not shipping in extreme weather conditions (below 40 degrees F or over 88 degrees F), unless the buyer insists. In this case, I will provide cool or heat packs, but I won't replace or refund the gecko if it arrives deceased.

Mandalay's arrival (pic 1), and when settled in (pic 2)

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Quarantine

 

 

There is nothing as important as quarantining a newly acquired gecko. Even if it looks healthy, has a fat tail, eats and poops and comes from a trusted breeder, you need to quarantine it (put it separately from all other geckos) for at least 30 days to 90 days, to make sure it does not have parasites and gets well acclimated to its new environment. Otherwise, it can possibly eliminate your whole collection (or be infected by one of your existing geckos). After the quarantine period, you can put it together with other geckos, but if they start fighting or bullying, separate it. If the new gecko is a female, only put it with a male if you want to breed her, and if you have checked prior to that whether she is ovulating. Otherwise, she will reject the male, and ugly/dangerous bite wounds can occur.

 

                    Romeo in his quarantine tank, 05/12/2011:                                     Juliet in her quarantine tank, 05/12/2011:

 

 

 

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Gecko Poop

Healthy gecko poop (the brown part) and pee (the white part) ;-)

If your gecko's poop doesn't look like this (i.e., if it is runny, beige, or liquid and transparent), get a fecal stain/smear done at the vet's with a FRESH sample immediately! Avoid the EXAM (about USD 125), just get the FECAL STAIN at first (about USD 23). Your gecko most likely has parasites. Separate it from any other geckos (best: different rooms! Flagellates can build spores and fly through your room into other cages!), and keep its cage VERY clean at all times. Wear gloves and disinfect your hands any time you go from gecko to gecko. Don't share water bowls or food items. Parasites are transferred through water, air, and fecal matter. Don't use the same crickets for an infected and a healthy gecko. Crickets that eat poop of a sick gecko and get eaten by a healthy gecko will transfer the disease to the healthy gecko.