Baby White Line Gecko Help!

youngin720 · #1 02-04-2009, 07:05 PM

I brought home two very adorable baby white line geckos yesterday (feb 3) thhey where hatched that morning, The pet store that i work for does not promote breeding so i had to take them that day or we could get in trouble. I just felt bad scraping eggs off a wall its mean.

Any way I've been searching the threads looking for info on baby care and found some good stuff. But what i want to know is when the babies should first eat. They are currently in a five gallon with paper towel and some fake leaves a lid for a water dish very shallow and a milk jug size cap with crested gecko diet in it. I don't know when thery should eat so i try to leave fresh crested food in there all day yesterday and today in case they get hungry. One has eaten what looks like a shedlike layer of skin off its self and the other still has some left on it any info would help me soooooo much I have other reptiles but never had a hatchling.

BlakeDeffenbaugh · #2 02-04-2009, 07:17 PM

Why is the pet store against breeding?

As for food. Not many of my Gekko eat anything but live food so you might be wasting time with the CGD. Wait 3-4 days then throw in a couple small small crickets and see if they eat. Right now they are still running off the egg yoke so you got to let that go threw their system first.

youngin720 · #3 02-04-2009, 08:43 PM

we are not supposed to keep any eggs that anything in the store has and if for some reason any babies are born we can not add them to the invintory we give them away ex. we only sell one sex of small animals so if we accidentlly get the wrong sex and we have babies we adopt them out not sell. But as far as the eggs go they get thrown out. Some how i was able to keep the gecko eggs hidden behind a bunch of leaves for 10 weeks.

Thankyou for the info, i really appretiate it.

Ingo · #4 02-05-2009, 01:54 AM

Hi,

sometimes, G. vittatus babies do not grow too well if seperated from their parents too early. Not always the case, but reported several times, also in literature. In some casaes I made the same expereince but that is history since I think, I have found the reason for that:
Obviously establishment of a healthy gut flora is much aided by giving the babies the opportunity to lick at their parents feces.
At least in my hands, this helps to let isolated babies grow as fast and well as relatives staying with their parents.
It is sufficient, to offer the poo once a week during the first three weeks.
So far no scientific proof for that (but for Iguanas, a published paper describes a similar effect), but quite some anecdotal evidence.

Ingo

youngin720 · #5 02-05-2009, 08:44 AM

So i should bring home some poo from thier parents? That seems gross. the babies seem pretty healthy, they both are pretty big, they are very active too. I'm going to get pin heads today i finally found someone in the area that sells them. Do you think they will be ol with out the poo? I mean It's a pet store if be affraid that we could sell the parents any day. also i don't know if the male we have in there is dad because we origonally had 3 and i'm pretty sure that one that we sold was a male would it harm them to give them the wrong parents fecal matter?

Ingo · #6 02-05-2009, 09:28 AM

Of course, parents have to be parasite free and feces has to be fresh. You may also wait and see, if babies grow well or not and only give some feces, if they do not.
But I personally only have good experiences in doing so.

Ingo

lilguys · #7 02-05-2009, 10:11 AM

The pin head crickets should work if you say they have a lil size on them. I know it sounds mean but I have cliped a few pinhead back legs to make it a bit ez for babys to track down. I think it helps pray drive in the babys. Keep us posted and pics if you have them.

Saille · #8 02-05-2009, 09:29 PM

Wow, interesting and excellent info about the parents' feces, Ingo!
It makes sense. When I got my male and his son, I was surprised that he hadn't attacked his young. (I thought I was getting the mum and the juvie, but it was the father!) Apparently, they protect their eggs and young!
In my experience, juvie White lines will readily eat crested gecko diet, then they seem to slow down and prefer live insect prey as they hit sexual maturity.
I think its awesome that you have these white lineds, I think that your store could sell them as captive bred because well, they were!!

youngin720 · #9 02-06-2009, 09:13 AM

They don't seem to be interested it to much, they have been licking the water off the walls right after i mist. But they were watching the two crickets i put in there this morning so heres hoping! I really hope these guys make it,I'm doing everything that I know how to do. I'm no expert thats for sure especially I own desert reptiles (beardie and leo's) this tropical thing is new to me. I've tried to attach a couple of pic one of each of them. As you can see one is a bit shyer than the other lol but they are so cute!

Saille · #10 02-06-2009, 03:25 PM

Awwww, they're sooooo cute!
These guys should be pretty easy, especially if you have a reptile room thats nice and warm for them. They really just need nightly misting, a proper diet and lots of places to hide in. Mine love paper towel and toilet roll tubes! They seem to prefer a vertical set up as they're arboreal, but otherwise, from what I can see, your set up looks just fine! Paper towel is a great substrate for the little ones, in my experience (no worries about impaction!).
Good luck with them, please keep us updated on their progress!