Holodactylus baby

[vavavoomy]

Well I rarely post on here as I tend to just browse when needing info, but in July of last year purchased 3 Holodactylus, and with help from Brian, Modeki and now Ptenopus, have managed to keep em alive successfully which led to them breeding. The result was 3 eggs, 2 of which deflated and 1 which hatched yesterday, so I am now the proud owner of a baby holo, which could quite possibly be one of the first, if not THE first in the UK.......its currently settled in a lil burrow, and I am keeping everything crossed that I can keep it alive and it grows quickly and healthily.

Here's a couple of piccies, enjoy

 

[David]

:shock: wow congrats for this breeding success !!!

too rare to see some cb ones

 

[vavavoomy]

thank you, just gotta keep it alive now.......i am already fussing a lot lol

 

[Jon McMahon]

Nice work on those Holos :wink: Nice pics as well. Any shots of their enclosure to share?

 

[Kevin McRae]

Good work!

One cute gecko!

 

[Palex134]

that is the most gorgeous hoplo ive ever seen!

I cant wait to see it in a few months, and see the difference between imports!

Congrats on such a challenging species!

 

[Reptiluvr]

Great work. This is the first Holo baby I've ever seen. It's good that people are figuring out what the appropriate setup is for their success.

 

[geckomaster]

That's wonderful, congratulations! Keep up the good work!

 

[robk]

Congratulations,Very nice

Did you cool the adults atall? How did you find the eggs?

 

[vavavoomy]

sorry for the late replies guys, and thank you all for your congrats.

The lil un is being kept in a plastic box with 50/50 eco moist earth/playsand as a substrate, over the other half of a heat mat I have a corsnake geo on (dont worry baby cant see snake, hoping she cant smell her either). I have placed 1 small cricket in her box each evening, but she hasn't eaten yet, so obviously I am getting worried now. She is still alive and pretty active, I discovered, when I dug her up just now and frightened the life out of her, poor lil thing, was digging for England lol. The box is getting quite damp with condensation which in a way is helping me overcome my water dish problem, havent got anything small and shallow enough for her to drink out of without becoming a potential drowning hazard

The 3 adults are living in a wooden, waterproofed 18 x 18 x 18 viv, with heat supplied by a small mat and an anfra red lamp in the back right cornergiving a hot side temp of about 85 - 88 and a cool side temp of about 75. Substrate same as the little ones, with pieces of buried cork bark and a moist hide on the surface, and of course a shallow water dish. I sparay the surface oof the substrate every 2 - 3 days.

I dont see the adults very often, but they are in a viv at the bottom of a 7ft stack so they aren't really easy to spot. I keep meaning to dig them up just to ensure they are still alive as I usually only see max of 2 out of the 3 at one time and they are a lil difficult to tell apart without looking hard lol. Main reason for the non digging up is I dont want to find more eggs and disturb them, I would rather they incubated and hatched by themselves without my intervention this time.

Anyway back to the baby holo, any tips on getting her to feed, as these 1st star crickets are a bit tiny to hold to her without killing em, and when I tried it this morning it just frightened her even more

I dont want to lose her, I would be devastated

BTW I am calling her her, just cos she look female-ish in the face, but I am hoping she will be a he lol

 

[Geckoworld]

Hello,

Congratulations on your success, I've always wanted to keep africanus, but never got round to getting any.

Firstly, I would try leaving her alone to get used to her new environment. Digging her up must be very scary for the gecko. Also, you said something about holding the crickets? Are you trying to hand feed it?

Has the little 'un had it's first shed yet? I would wait until "she" has, then try feeding her small enough crickets, try pinching the back legs off them so the gecko will have an easier job catching them. I wouldn't add too many either as uneaten crickets will stress the gecko out.

Hope some of this can help you.

 

[vavavoomy]

no shed as far as i can see, but 'she' is underground a lot and i havent seen 'her' emerge yet.........guess i just gotta leave 'her' to get on with it and hope 'she' lives to tell the tail (hehe)

 

[Geckoworld]

Please keep me informed on it's progress. Especially great to see someone in UK had success with them. You're not too far from me actually, I live in Portsmouth

 

[vavavoomy]

will do, Ray

btw Rob, I didn't cool the adults. I literally set up the viv and left them to get on with it, feeding, spraying and topping up water as and when

 

[vavavoomy]

baby still not eating, no idea if it has shed but it is moving around in its burrows....getting concerned now as its a week old......any suggestions thanx

 

[Geckoworld]

Sorry I can't really help but hopefully Thomas will see this post.

However, if I kept this species, I wouldn't opt for any type of under tank heating methods. As you can imagine, in the wild, the gecko will burrow to cooler layers in the ground in order to escape the heat. I would opt for using a spot lamp.

 

[Brian]

I actually think a little underground heat is useful in order to heat the ground appropriately. The spot light is what I used to use, but the heat didn't pentrate deep enough and I ended up loosing geckos in the colder part of winter when parts of the substrate dropped to low for too long even with a above heat source 24/7. I ended up useing a combo now although it turns out I was merely copying someone else. I may turn off the pad though as temps stay above 70 at night. I guess it would depend on the surrounding temps.

I know it sounds counter intuitive since a burrowing animal would go down to escape heat, it's just I think a lot of people have the substrate to cold when they loose them after the initial organ failure/die off.

 

[ptenopus]

You need to get some 2 week old crickets, and take the back legs off with tweezers. Dont try to hold the cricket to the gecko at all. Removing the legss slows the cricket down. Feed the baby 2 crickets like this just before dark. They should be gone by moring.

 

[vavavoomy]

Thanks guys, incidentally Brian's advice has been the biggest reason why I atill have adult holos alive.....my biggest female and male were out n about the other night, havent see the 2nd female for quite a while now, dread unearthing them cant bear to find a dead one.

The baby is in a plastic box, so overhead heating would be impossible unfortunately, and i onoly have the box 1/4 over the heat mat. I dont have a wooden/glass one small enough for the lil fella. It has been spending all its time in burrows towards the cooler end, and I have been 1 small cricket, with back legs removed in the box. But it is always there the next morning. I am wondering if it is survivng this long on its egg sac, but if I am right in believing most of you guys who HAVE hatched these lil things have done so within the main viv you aren't going to know how old they were before they surfaces to eat.

I am wondering too whether I am frightening the lil thing to death each time I take the plastic lid off, it is a bit noisy, plastic off plastic is after all, but I have no choice. I guess I just gotta keep fingers crossed and hope for the best.........the 2 adults are fit and healthy, the female is a whopper, so I guess I should just be thankful they are still with me and call it a blessing if the baby lives

 

[Brian]

I had a regular Fat tail go over a week before it's first meal. What's the temp on the cool end and is the warm end just as moist as the cool end?

Most of what I told you was a collection of information people just shared with me.