niccoliherp
New member
Several years ago I purchased my first crested. Since then, my colony has expanded exponentially. Right now, I have about 20 breeders, 10 holdbacks for next year, another 20 juvies, and around 10 or more eggs in the incubator. They are just now starting to pick up production for 2008, and I have already noticed several eggs that need to be collected tonight. This story is about one of the breeder males in my colony.
I purchased this male as a juvenile, in the summer of 2003. At the time I was working in an exotic pet store, and had become friends with some of the local reptile breeders. I came into work one day and noticed a new crested had been set up in one of the terrariums at the back of the store. I reached in and pulled out one of the coolest looking flames that I had seen at the time. It was truely awesome. After some digging, I figured out that this crested was actually from one of the local breeders, whom I had already purchased from. I had been extremely happy with my previous purchase (which is one of my main males today), and played with the idea of another gecko in the collection.
After toying with the idea for a few weeks (partially hoping that someone would buy it and spare me the money, partially hoping that no one would buy it, so that I could), I decided that enough was enough, and bought it. At that time, this gecko was as calm as any other, with an excellent flame pattern, and a few flecks of dalmation spots. Later, as it developed into a "man," it developed an absolutely stunning lime green base coloration, with several black and red dalmation spots (not exactly super, but still awesome), with a gorgeous partial pin flame pattern (about 80% pin).
Unfortunately, I did not have any available females for the first few years of his adult life. This meant that he was housed alone, with only me for company. I would take him out and handle him often, but I just wasn't satisfied, and neither was he. Sooner or later I began setting up tanks next to his, with holdback females in them. Now that I look back on it, this was probably a cruel predicament to put him in. Even more cruel was the fact that I would feed the females in the colony (sometimes handling them in between) before taking care of him.
At some point, he decided that enough was enough. It was on that night that I had just fed and handled all of my females in other cages before proceeding to his cage. Upon opening it, he immediately shot out from behind his favorite hiding place, and swiftly leapt onto my hand. I though at the time that this was an interesting behavior and stopped to examine him sitting on my hand. At this time he began acting very strange. He crawled across my hand, nose down and licking constantly. This was beginning to make me a little nervous. Then, suddenly and without warning, he leaned his head to the side, and gently but quickly grabbed a small portion of my skin in his mouth. He then proceeded to jerk his body and chirp. Needless to say, I was extremely suprised, and quickly picked him off one hand, only to have him turn abruptly around and perform the same actions to the other. (I don't know if you've ever observed the mating displays of these geckos, but it generally consists of the male licking the females limbs, gently biting her, and then jerking his body around while chirping. The female then responds either by chirping, toungue flicking, a combination of the two, or by shaking its head from side to side and squeaking.) I was indeed disturbed, but somehow facinated with this, until he did his "male duties" on my hand. At this, I promptly proceeded to finish feeding/watering him and put him back in the cage.
The next night I had the same problem, but this time I was prepared. You can probably imagine the hilarity in seeing a young man dodging an easily excitable crested gecko in order to perform everyday maintanance. From this point on for about a year, we would play this game every night at feeding time. So at some point I decided to try and fix this scenario. Everytime that he would "get me" I would sneak in a little rubbing alcohol. Not actually into his mouth or anything, but near enough to his face that he would smell it. I was pleased that this seemed to be stopping the problem. After about a week of this "treatment," he appeared to have stopped all together. I was able to pick him up again, without the fear of molestation. Soon after he stopped his unspeakable actions, I finally came across an extra female to put in with him.
Apparently he was a little too rough with her, because she ran too. I have since been experimenting with different females and have seemed to have found one that keeps his labido controlled.
The end of this scenario was about 3 or 4 months ago. However, I was recently reminded of it one night by a momentary relapse in the gecko's self control. I say momentary relapse because I am hoping that he will not start this action up again. He is definitely one of my best looking males, and even though he has done some things that I would rather forget, I would never dream of getting rid of him.
I purchased this male as a juvenile, in the summer of 2003. At the time I was working in an exotic pet store, and had become friends with some of the local reptile breeders. I came into work one day and noticed a new crested had been set up in one of the terrariums at the back of the store. I reached in and pulled out one of the coolest looking flames that I had seen at the time. It was truely awesome. After some digging, I figured out that this crested was actually from one of the local breeders, whom I had already purchased from. I had been extremely happy with my previous purchase (which is one of my main males today), and played with the idea of another gecko in the collection.
After toying with the idea for a few weeks (partially hoping that someone would buy it and spare me the money, partially hoping that no one would buy it, so that I could), I decided that enough was enough, and bought it. At that time, this gecko was as calm as any other, with an excellent flame pattern, and a few flecks of dalmation spots. Later, as it developed into a "man," it developed an absolutely stunning lime green base coloration, with several black and red dalmation spots (not exactly super, but still awesome), with a gorgeous partial pin flame pattern (about 80% pin).
Unfortunately, I did not have any available females for the first few years of his adult life. This meant that he was housed alone, with only me for company. I would take him out and handle him often, but I just wasn't satisfied, and neither was he. Sooner or later I began setting up tanks next to his, with holdback females in them. Now that I look back on it, this was probably a cruel predicament to put him in. Even more cruel was the fact that I would feed the females in the colony (sometimes handling them in between) before taking care of him.
At some point, he decided that enough was enough. It was on that night that I had just fed and handled all of my females in other cages before proceeding to his cage. Upon opening it, he immediately shot out from behind his favorite hiding place, and swiftly leapt onto my hand. I though at the time that this was an interesting behavior and stopped to examine him sitting on my hand. At this time he began acting very strange. He crawled across my hand, nose down and licking constantly. This was beginning to make me a little nervous. Then, suddenly and without warning, he leaned his head to the side, and gently but quickly grabbed a small portion of my skin in his mouth. He then proceeded to jerk his body and chirp. Needless to say, I was extremely suprised, and quickly picked him off one hand, only to have him turn abruptly around and perform the same actions to the other. (I don't know if you've ever observed the mating displays of these geckos, but it generally consists of the male licking the females limbs, gently biting her, and then jerking his body around while chirping. The female then responds either by chirping, toungue flicking, a combination of the two, or by shaking its head from side to side and squeaking.) I was indeed disturbed, but somehow facinated with this, until he did his "male duties" on my hand. At this, I promptly proceeded to finish feeding/watering him and put him back in the cage.
The next night I had the same problem, but this time I was prepared. You can probably imagine the hilarity in seeing a young man dodging an easily excitable crested gecko in order to perform everyday maintanance. From this point on for about a year, we would play this game every night at feeding time. So at some point I decided to try and fix this scenario. Everytime that he would "get me" I would sneak in a little rubbing alcohol. Not actually into his mouth or anything, but near enough to his face that he would smell it. I was pleased that this seemed to be stopping the problem. After about a week of this "treatment," he appeared to have stopped all together. I was able to pick him up again, without the fear of molestation. Soon after he stopped his unspeakable actions, I finally came across an extra female to put in with him.
Apparently he was a little too rough with her, because she ran too. I have since been experimenting with different females and have seemed to have found one that keeps his labido controlled.
The end of this scenario was about 3 or 4 months ago. However, I was recently reminded of it one night by a momentary relapse in the gecko's self control. I say momentary relapse because I am hoping that he will not start this action up again. He is definitely one of my best looking males, and even though he has done some things that I would rather forget, I would never dream of getting rid of him.
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