Anyone have advice on "introducing" Tokays?

ILoveMyTokay · #1 10-28-2009, 12:20 PM

Hello! I am currently the proud owner of Samara (formerly known as Jaws) who I am 99% sure is a female tokay. I'll get some pics up of her soon

I brought her into my local vet to check for parasites and determine her sex, but we live out in the boonies a bit, and he said he did some research and "believes it to be female" but that doesn't sound very concrete to me. If I were to get some pictures up, do you guys think you could help me confirm her sex? I have been doing lots of research on how to care for her as she is a rescue, and we currently have her in a custom 55 gal. tank that is tall, but shaped more like a fat square vs. your traditional 55 gallon tall tank thats long and narrow. The reason I am asking is that my fiance and I are interested in getting another Tokay, but we are well aware that you can't house two males together, etc. etc. As we are fairly certain that Samara is a female, we would be looking to purchase a male Tokay for our tank.

So, if it turns out that Samara is in fact a girl, do you guys have any tips for introducing the male into her living space? We have a separate 20 gallon tank that we put Samara in when we are cleaning her tank. I was thinking we would clean out her tank really good and wipe everything down first, but I'm hesitant to just put the two of them in the freshly-cleaned tank together. For one thing, as is her nature, Samara is aggressive. She is fullgrown (I believe) and is about 10.5 inches from the tip of her tail to the tip of her nose. I'm told that this is smaller for a Tokay, but I don't know what her past life was prior to me, I only know that I've had her for approximately 2 years.

Thanks in advance for the advice, and since this is my first post here, I really hope to speak frequently with you guys!

Natalie

NathanSoto · #2 10-28-2009, 12:57 PM

Welcome to GU and YES! we can help determine the sex if you take some good pictures of the Ventricle area.

10.5 inches is typical for a female, females usually stay between 9-11 inches and males 11-14 usually, and as for introducing each other there's not really much to it, what i do is clean out the cage and rearrange everything so no one has an established territory and that should work out fine just be sure and watch them to make sure there is no fighting.

ILoveMyTokay · #3 10-28-2009, 02:23 PM

Thanks for the response! Well, then that should be ok. I am looking to get an adult male, or maybe an adolescent, but surely nothing less than 8 inches for her, just in case. Being an only-gecko, I don't want her to be beating the other one up. Do you think our tank is sufficiently sized to house another Tokay? There is lots of wallspace/climbing space, but one of the walls we have taken vines and covered. Samara likes the privacy, she crawls on them but only at night.

NathanSoto · #4 10-28-2009, 02:32 PM

That is definitely enough space, i think their should be 20 gallons per Tokay so 50g is excellent for 2 just make sure you have plenty of hiding spots.

And if i were you i would shoot for a larger adult male preferably bigger than her.

**Riverside Reptiles** · #5 10-28-2009, 02:39 PM

Don't forget to quarantine any male that you get before putting them together. Try to find a captive bred animal if you can.

ILoveMyTokay · #6 10-28-2009, 04:23 PM

Thanks Riverside! I was thinking i would quarantine for about 72 hours to make sure everything was good (and of course to not give the poor guy a heart attack). Yes, I was planning on buying one from captive bred. I have no idea what Samara was, if she was wild caught or not, but I definitely don't want to support the industry there, so captive-bred is definitely the way to go. Do you think you could point me in the direction of some reputable breeders?

**Riverside Reptiles** · #7 10-28-2009, 05:14 PM

Usually at least 30 days is recommended for quarantine. You don't want to take a chance on spreading parasites or disease from one animal to the other. As for tokay breeders, we have multiple members of these forums that captive breed them. I'd suggest placing a "wanted" ad in the forum classifieds. Most tokay on the market are wild caught. So make sure to ask specifically for captive bred before you purchase from anyone.

ILoveMyTokay · #8 10-29-2009, 10:11 AM

30 days, really? I would never have known, thank you so much for the tip. I guess it is a very good thing that we have that separate tank. I definitely will place a wanted ad and see what I can come up with. I have a suspicion that Samara is wild-caught, the idea of taming her seems absolutely ridiculous to me, she skitters if I walk too close to her cage and has latched on to my hand once before while getting too close when changing her water. Yowzas! I didn't know something that small could bite so hard, I was pretty shocked.
Thanks again for all of the advice, I will definitely be following it.