HerpTime

Say hello to my little friends 😆 with the help of some Timberline 3 day old crickets and some TLC, these itty bitty Cameroon dwarf geckos (Lygodactylus conraui) will be growing super fast. It still blows my mind that animals this small seem to have so much awareness and curiosity straight out of the egg. I’ll upgrade them out of these deli cups within a month or so, but at this size the name of the game is keeping a close eye to see any problems early on, and keeping good proximity to food; in anything larger than this cup there could be issues locating lunch. As I mentioned, little creatures can be intimidating… but with proper planning and supplies, they tend to thrive quickly!

How to make a micro gecko enclosure! This quick video tutorial is the basic way to set up an enclosure for most any species of Sphaerodactylus or Gonatodes. This 12x12x12 @Zoo Med Laboratories, Inc. enclosure is a great size for the “largest” species of micro geckos. The same steps in this video can be applied to deli cups, jars, and smaller enclosures for baby geckos that don’t need all this space. The cork tube can be skipped, but at the least, some cork and/or leaves are essential! Make sure whatever enclosure you use, you seal up any holes or gaps that a geckos can escape. Ideal temps to keep most micros at will be 75-85 degrees Fahrenheit. Avoid long dips below 70. For misting, I recommend every other day. You’ll want to mist the half of the enclosure with the plant (ideally same area where the sphagnum moss is) and leave the other half relatively dry. This way the geckos have a humidity gradient. You may notice I didn’t include a drainage layer… this is because the soil should never be saturated, and should dry out somewhat in-between mistings. Your goal is to mist just enough for the plant, and for the geckos to drink droplets of water. The ambient humidity should hover between 50-70%. Feeding appropriate sized insects can happen on the days you don’t mist. It’s a must to feed only live insects, as most Sphaeros will not eat premade gecko diets, and even if they do it is not sustainable long term. Dusting insects with calcium with d3 and vitamins is important as well, especially for growing juveniles and breeding females. This set up style is just one of many ways to create a micro gecko enclosure, but it is a tried and true method that has worked for many species I have kept! Feel free to experiment and make an enclosure the way you like… just remember the important parts: 2:1 soil/sand mix, layers of bark and/or large leaves, 75-85f, 50-70% humidity, mist lightly 3x a week, feeding lightly 3x a week… and you should have success keeping micro geckos!

Speed run making a baby gecko with me! These are ashy geckos (sphaerodactylus elegans), a very easy to keep species of micro gecko. The babies pop out looking like little highlighters and are adorable, but I think the even more incredible feat of nature is how the females lay eggs. This female will go thru this process of laying one large egg (in relation to her body size) at a time. Sometimes once a month, sometimes in even shorter intervals! All species of sphaerodactylus lay one egg at a time just like this, and I find it amazing what their little bodies are able to accomplish. Just the amount of space in the body the egg takes up, and the energy and nutrients it takes to create such a proportionately large egg. Extremely taxing on their bodies, yet they can lay several in a breeding season! Just another reason to be amazed by these little geckos. A fun video I couldn’t help but share again!

Experimenting with keeping my golden mantellas cool for the summer with a Repti Cooler from Zoo Med. In my most recent video on the mantellas, I created a new habitat for them. This time, I’m trying to make the habitat perfect, template wise. Most of the species I keep are warm and tropical, and love when my facility hits 80-85f… the golden mantellas, not so much. They prefer cooler temps, and are the odd ones out. I can’t turn AC on for my whole place, because majority of my critters wouldn’t be happy. That’s where this Repti Cooler comes super handy. It isn’t just a fan pushing air, it’s actually pushing cool and humid air, which is great for the frogs and won’t dry them out. This gadget is a solution I never thought of, as I’ve tried normal computer fans before but they can lower humidity a lot. I’m going to keep experimenting with it to see how they do long term, but so far, I’m happy with it and so are the frogs!

Time to season some crickets with some ZooMed Repti Calcium and Reptivite 🧂 It’s inevitable that the comments always ask, “whats the white stuff?” when I post a feeding video. They’re vitamin supplements, specifically from @Zoo Med Laboratories, Inc. — I use these to enhance and enrich the feeder insects I give to my lizards. This is because the insects we feed in captivity don’t always contain all the vitamins and minerals our lizards would be eating in the wild, so adding it makes sure they get everything they need for healthy growth, bodily function, and successful reproduction. (Though these are Timberline vitabugs, which come with a lot of extra vitamins and omegas pre-loaded in them, but that’s for another video!) I prefer the ZooMed supplements not only because they fulfill the nutritional needs for my animals, and l’ve produced multiple healthy generation of lizard using almost exclusively these two products, but because it’s the best product I’ve found to stick to the feeders! Effortlessly, the calcium and vitamins will attach to crickets or other feeders when shaken well, and will not come off for hours. Other brands don’t adhere well or eventually start to fall off after a short period of time. I haven’t found that problem with this product! And I don’t think the lizards mind it one bit. I always get a kick out of watching my lizards eat, and I hope you will too. Enjoy!

Unboxing some new additions from @Bion_terrarium_center! I’ve always loved Uroplatus geckos and have only dabbled, but I finally am going to work on breeding these beautiful satanic leaf tail geckos (Uroplatus fantasticus). Not only are these captive bred in Ukraine, but according to official CITES statistics, BION is the second largest exporter in the world of captive bred leaf tail geckos. Supporting captive breeding efforts of animals is so important to relieve pressure on wild populations and being able to supply healthy animals that would otherwise be much less common; thats what I and so many others in the world wide reptile community try to do. The Responsible Herpetoculture Journal is a great way this captive breeding information is shared on a world wide level. It has tons of professional and informative content on herpetology and herpetoculture created by an international editorial board; definitely worth reading and subscribing if you can. I know I have put the information in it to use, and excited that BION sent me a few extra copies with my new geckos! The new geckos have gone in simple quarantine enclosures to be monitored after their long journey, but stay tuned as I share my journey of building them enclosures, caring for them, and hopefully hatching some of my own! #gecko #unboxing

When you hatch early and you watch your sibling struggle lol. Baby electric blue day geckos (Lygodactylus williamsi) hatching out of their eggs. A female electric blue will lay 2 eggs at a time, glueing them to a surface. After several weeks, the eggs will hatch around the same time. You can see the one on the right hatched before the left. Even at only a an hour or so old, the hatched gecko was very curious to see what was going on with its sibling hatching! A cool little interaction to catch on camera.