Introducing a male and female grandis

[ofrell]

My new male grandis from a friend is arriving today. He is about 6 months. I currently have a female grandis that is 7 months. I would like to introduce them to each other as the goal is for them to co-inhabit the same viv. I am a bit worried about fighting / aggression though as I've heard this can be an issue. Would you please offer your experiences / suggestions for approaching this situation.

thank you

jeff

 

[Aimless]

are both fully mature? that is the first question.

 

[ofrell]

I'm not sure how to determine that to be honest. I believe my female produced her first egg, though i didn't witness it. She had a very "gravid" seeming belly and large calcium sacks, went off most food for over a week, dropped quite a bit of weight and now has resumed eating. And seems fine. I'm not sure how to tell maturity in males. Please advise.

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

I'm not sure how to determine that to be honest. I believe my female produced her first egg, though i didn't witness it. She had a very "gravid" seeming belly and large calcium sacks, went off most food for over a week, dropped quite a bit of weight and now has resumed eating. And seems fine. I'm not sure how to tell maturity in males. Please advise.

I'm glad that your female is back on food.

6 and 7 mo grandis are very young. Sometimes 18 months old (at least over 12 months old) is recommended as a minimum breeding age. Infertile eggs are common with geckos and can be very hard on the female. All eggs really deplete calcium stores.

Can you house them separately for now? Maybe you did not have that in mind, but it's best for both of them.

Hopefully some experienced Phelsuma grandis breeders will stop by.

 

[ofrell]

I'm glad that your female is back on food.

6 and 7 mo grandis are very young. Sometimes 18 months old (at least over 12 months old) is recommended as a minimum breeding age. Infertile eggs are common with geckos and can be very hard on a female. All eggs really deplete calcium stores.

Can you house them separately for now? You probably did not have that in mind, but it's best for both of them.

Hopefully some experienced Phelsuma grandis breeders will stop by.

Thank you for your kind words Elizabeth.

I understand. I'm not trying to push them to breed and don't want young grandis soon. I was assuming females would produce eggs whether a male was around or not, similar to a chicken Is this not the case? Is egg production increased in the presence of a male in day geckos?

thank you and I apologize for my ignorance. I've read as much as I can find and have bought books etc but don't see these sorts of issues addressed commonly...at least not the reasoning behind some of the rules of thumb at least....like waiting 12 or 18 months etc.

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Thank you for your kind words Elizabeth.

I understand. I'm not trying to push them to breed and don't want young grandis soon. I was assuming females would produce eggs whether a male was around or not, similar to a chicken Is this not the case? Is egg production increased in the presence of a male in day geckos?

thank you and I apologize for my ignorance. I've read as much as I can find and have bought books etc but don't see these sorts of issues addressed commonly...at least not the reasoning behind some of the rules of thumb at least....like waiting 12 or 18 months etc.

A warm welcome to Geckos Unlimited! Thanks, Jeff. No worries anywhere, really. All questions are good. There is so much to learn about geckos. Each genus is different.

When a gecko is older, like 18 mo, she is stronger physically.

The problem is that a male (frisky young dudes that they are) will probably try to mate with the female. To him she's game. In these cases he does not wait till she's older. Bearing fertile eggs too soon takes it's toll on a female. I would not want you to lose her.

I'm going to tag a member who's experienced breeding day geckos. She's not the only one, of course, but [MENTION=40763]Tamara[/MENTION] stops by frequently.

 

[Tamara]

All i can say abouth this subject is that i agree with everything Elizabeth mentioned.
They reach their full size around a year, but their bones will develop for a while longer than that.
Bones need calcium to grow, if you breed them before the bones are fully formed the production of eggs will take away the calcium that's needed by the skeleton, resulting in a very weak bone structure, weak eggs, weak offspring, MBD , and so on...
That's why it's also important to keep providing full grown breeding animals with suplementary calcium and UV-B lighting, to prevent the production of eggs from draining the calcium from the skeletal structure.

Please, keep them seperate untill they are atleast 18 month's or older, it will give you so much more time to enjoy the company of your female.

 

[ofrell]

Hi Tamara. Thank you for this advice. I will do as you suggest.

jeff

 

[Tamara]

Your welcome.

 

[Nathanb]

Hi Jeff,
When it comes to introducing them in the future I can only share the advice that I was given (it seems to have worked for me) we had a single female (about 2 1/2 yrs old) and upgraded her tank to one that was a lot bigger and to introduce a couple of friends. The advice I was given was to set the new Viv up, put her in and then add the new pair vary quickly - the 2 new ones are a breeding pair that are about the same age (slightly different situation to yourself). The logic I was given for doing it this way by the store is that all 3 Geckos would be going into a new environment so there would be no established territories so they could all settle into the new tank together and establish territories whilst they were all a bit disorientated

This seems to have worked for me - I'm a few days on and after a bit of initial pushing and shoving/jostling they now seem to have all settled down, the 2 females seem to spend a lot of time in close proximity to each other and the male just does his own thing.

I'm fairly new to Geckos and I would be interested to know if this was the right approach or not - it would be good to get Elizabeth and Tamara's thoughts on this?

Hope this helps
Thanks
Nathan