[J.P.]

Hi guys!
I'm new to geckos, and my first pair of tokays will arrive this weekend. According to the seller, they are a proven pair. They were enclosed in a 20gal tank and i'm thinking of putting them in a 100cmX50cmX30CM cage with some live plants. Can i just put them in the big enclosure at once?

I don't want them breeding right away. I would like to get a few months tokay care experience before I start with tokay babies. What can i do to prevent mating? I've read that it's not good to separate a bonded pair. And that the male would make the loud mating call if his woman is away (i don't want that).

Since they are native to my country, i will not control humidity and temp to keep things natural. The front of the enclosure is glass, the sides will be mesh, and the back is plywood. The only thing i could think of to prevent babies is separate them or maybe alter the diet (low calcium???). Any better ideas?

Thanks in advance! I will show pics when i can.

[Emilylovesherps]

Welcome to the forum! You're gonna love your new friends

Whatever you do-don't reduce calcium. You will want to keep them as healthy as possible. As for a good breeding setup-I got my advice from a big time pro tokay breeder here in South Florida. He breeds crazy morphs and I really trust his advice with this species!
1. Decent sized cage 30-40 gallon
2. 75 watt heat bulb-red is fine
3. Cocohusk or cypress bark or even aspen bedding
4. waterbowl-not as important but just in case
5. spray bottle-spray twice a day!
6. *most important element for breeding* a ceramic planter or pot with a hole broken in the side so the geckos can climb up inside and lay their eggs. They will stay in here all of the time. That's why cage size is not AS important. Bigger, of course, is always better.
7. Feed alot of crickets or roaches with calcium dusted every time.

You probably have plenty of time before eggs hatch to get used to these guys. They are also great parents, so you can leave the young in with the adults and they will help raise them. I was also told that the babies willl eat the adults fecal matter to get nutrients and natural flora to help fend off disease. Not sure if that one is true, but it's not out of the question-Iguanas do it.

Enjoy them. You'll love these guys. As for the calls the male makes, you will find them endearing too

[J.P.]

Hi emily! thanks for the reply.

i actually like hearing tokay calls, and any wild animal for that matter. but i'm gonna put them in the house, so i want to minimize if not eliminated the sounds.

i guess i'll leave the population control alone.

but the environment control bugs me a little. since wild tokays live in the wild practically a stone's throw away from my house, can't i use mesh walls to let my tokays have whatever condition(humidity/temp) their wild cousins are getting? i got no problem with spraying and using heat lamps, i just thought i don't need it since wild tokays thrive in our climate.

[Riverside Reptiles]

Since tokay are native to your environment, you shouldn't need to do much of anything for them other than keep them fed. You will want to spray them daily as they tend to like to consume their water that way as opposed to out of a bowl. If you don't want them to breed, your only real option is to separate them. But as Emily mentioned, even if they breed right away, it'll be months before you have any actual babies. So that's up to you to determine how soon would be appropriate to have babies.

If you DO decide to add a heat lamp, I suggest using a ceramic heat emitter (CHE) as opposed to a red bulb. The CHE will last a million times longer and is much more efficient. But it doesn't sound like you're going to really need an added heat source.

[T-ReXx]

Although I wouldn't do it, if you really dont feel you're ready for babies you can always just remove the eggs and discard them. Though keeping baby tokays isn't much more difficult than keeping adults, and the parenting behavior is really interesting to watch.

[J.P.]

there is no stopping it now, i saw an egg this morning and momma tokay was guarding it.
am i to expect another one? and i guess the eggs will continue to come even if i separate the adults? the seller did say he suspected mating activity before i got the tokays, but he wasn't sure. oh well, if they want to breed then i wont stop them.

the thing is, i temporarily put them in a plastic bin because i have not yet finished setting up their home. and the egg is stuck on the lid. i was intending to put a roach colony in that bin. i hope that i will not mess up and ruin the egg. i now kind of feel lucky having it.

[J.P.]

some updates:
the pair are e few days in their enclosure now. they like to hide a lot, when they come out i seldom see them on the "branches", they are mostly clinging to the glass. i also do not know if they have eaten already. i left some roaches and mealworms on a dish, some got out of the dish so i can't really tell if they were eaten or just hiding.


my hastily made viv:

discarded 35gal fish tank. i pulled up some excess plants from our garden and picked up dry wood and fallen twigs from our backyard. i also put hides made out of paper mache.

the male peeking from behind one of the hides:



i hope to post more photos once i catch them up and about.

[J.P.]

guys,
it's been 3 weeks since i got the tokays. i thought they were eating the worms and dubia roaches i was putting in their viv because some are always missing from the dish each morning. but when i cleaned the viv day before yesterday, i found the insects under the potted plants. i highly suspect that no insect was eaten, just escaped and hidden under the plants. i replaced the dish with a taller one, and when i checked this morning, all the insects were there. i'm kinda worried about the female because she is not so fat. the male's tail is still big so i'm not worried about him.

the tokays are active at night, and i know for a fact that they both "pooped". i hope that their not eating for a long time is normal. has anybody experienced their tokays not eating for such a long time?

please help. i'm so tempted to "force feed". but i'm afraid that if i stress the tokays by handling, it will be back to square one in their accilimitization process.

[tokeh]

hi j.p.

nice to hear you have your first egg.
i would do anything to their huminty and heat. as you said they are native to where you live and they are naturally seen in houses so that will be fine.
i like your set up.
just make sure there is enough ventilation and thet they get their vitamins and calcium.

jeffrey

[J.P.]

tokeh,
thanks for the compliments and advice.

i'm dusting the feeders with calcium d3 and multivitamins, but the tokays are ignoring them. so after a few hours the insects are "dust-free". so i filled the feeding dish with calcium in hope that the insects will get dusted by crawling all over the calcium.

my tokays still aren't eating. the first tokay droppings i saw were big and moist, colored brown with white so i was only a little bit worried. but this morning, i saw only white droppings, no more brown. that means there is no more undigested food in their belly right? if yes, then i'm really worried now. i really hope they start eating soon. i'm afraid that they will continue to ignore food. i was really expecting voracious eaters when i got the tokays, it's a bit disappointing because i followed all the care sheets.

i feel that the tokays are used to thier home already. they are always roaming at night, even if i'm watching them. they're not afraid anymore, so it really bugs me that they still won't eat. i always give them time alone in case they want to eat in private, but when i come to check their dish, all feeders are still there.