Baby White Line Gecko Help!

[youngin720]

I brought home two very adorable baby white line geckos yesterday (feb 3) thhey where hatched that morning, The pet store that i work for does not promote breeding so i had to take them that day or we could get in trouble. I just felt bad scraping eggs off a wall its mean.

Any way I've been searching the threads looking for info on baby care and found some good stuff. But what i want to know is when the babies should first eat. They are currently in a five gallon with paper towel and some fake leaves a lid for a water dish very shallow and a milk jug size cap with crested gecko diet in it. I don't know when thery should eat so i try to leave fresh crested food in there all day yesterday and today in case they get hungry. One has eaten what looks like a shedlike layer of skin off its self and the other still has some left on it any info would help me soooooo much I have other reptiles but never had a hatchling.

 

[BlakeDeffenbaugh]

Why is the pet store against breeding?

As for food. Not many of my Gekko eat anything but live food so you might be wasting time with the CGD. Wait 3-4 days then throw in a couple small small crickets and see if they eat. Right now they are still running off the egg yoke so you got to let that go threw their system first.

 

[youngin720]

we are not supposed to keep any eggs that anything in the store has and if for some reason any babies are born we can not add them to the invintory we give them away ex. we only sell one sex of small animals so if we accidentlly get the wrong sex and we have babies we adopt them out not sell. But as far as the eggs go they get thrown out. Some how i was able to keep the gecko eggs hidden behind a bunch of leaves for 10 weeks.

Thankyou for the info, i really appretiate it.

 

[Ingo]

Hi,

sometimes, G. vittatus babies do not grow too well if seperated from their parents too early. Not always the case, but reported several times, also in literature. In some casaes I made the same expereince but that is history since I think, I have found the reason for that:
Obviously establishment of a healthy gut flora is much aided by giving the babies the opportunity to lick at their parents feces.
At least in my hands, this helps to let isolated babies grow as fast and well as relatives staying with their parents.
It is sufficient, to offer the poo once a week during the first three weeks.
So far no scientific proof for that (but for Iguanas, a published paper describes a similar effect), but quite some anecdotal evidence.


Ingo

 

[youngin720]

So i should bring home some poo from thier parents? That seems gross. the babies seem pretty healthy, they both are pretty big, they are very active too. I'm going to get pin heads today i finally found someone in the area that sells them. Do you think they will be ol with out the poo? I mean It's a pet store if be affraid that we could sell the parents any day. also i don't know if the male we have in there is dad because we origonally had 3 and i'm pretty sure that one that we sold was a male would it harm them to give them the wrong parents fecal matter?

 

[Ingo]

Of course, parents have to be parasite free and feces has to be fresh. You may also wait and see, if babies grow well or not and only give some feces, if they do not.
But I personally only have good experiences in doing so.

Ingo

 

[lilguys]

The pin head crickets should work if you say they have a lil size on them. I know it sounds mean but I have cliped a few pinhead back legs to make it a bit ez for babys to track down. I think it helps pray drive in the babys. Keep us posted and pics if you have them.

 

[Saille]

Wow, interesting and excellent info about the parents' feces, Ingo!
It makes sense. When I got my male and his son, I was surprised that he hadn't attacked his young. (I thought I was getting the mum and the juvie, but it was the father!) Apparently, they protect their eggs and young!
In my experience, juvie White lines will readily eat crested gecko diet, then they seem to slow down and prefer live insect prey as they hit sexual maturity.
I think its awesome that you have these white lineds, I think that your store could sell them as captive bred because well, they were!!
:biggrin:

 

[youngin720]

They don't seem to be interested it to much, they have been licking the water off the walls right after i mist. But they were watching the two crickets i put in there this morning so heres hoping! I really hope these guys make it,I'm doing everything that I know how to do. I'm no expert thats for sure especially I own desert reptiles (beardie and leo's) this tropical thing is new to me. I've tried to attach a couple of pic one of each of them. As you can see one is a bit shyer than the other lol but they are so cute!

 

[Saille]

Awwww, they're sooooo cute!
These guys should be pretty easy, especially if you have a reptile room thats nice and warm for them. They really just need nightly misting, a proper diet and lots of places to hide in. Mine love paper towel and toilet roll tubes! They seem to prefer a vertical set up as they're arboreal, but otherwise, from what I can see, your set up looks just fine! Paper towel is a great substrate for the little ones, in my experience (no worries about impaction!).
Good luck with them, please keep us updated on their progress!

 

[youngin720]

Well my reptile room is oddly enough my bed room we live in a 2 bedroom appartment and I have a 4 yr old so all the reptiles are in our room. the room its self stays prob no less than 70 so its a good base temp i have been keeping a heat source on them at night wasn't sure how cold the babies should get. I use a red heat light all day than an undertank at night so its warmer than with out. All my other guys just get lights out at night but they are adults. should i be taking out anything they don't eat every day? I put 8 pinheads in last night and i did see one of them go after one around 1am when i got home from work but there was still 7 in the morning. I didn't know if it was as important because they are aboreal unlike my leos.

 

[Saille]

The only thing I'd be worried about with pinheads being in there all night would be that they're no longer gut-loaded and thus not quite as nutritious for the geckos. If you can remove and re-feed/re-gutload the crickets before you put them back in there, that'd probably be a better idea. Remember, what the crickets eat ultimately is nutrition for your geckos, so you want to make sure the insects you are feeding have proper nutrition.

 

[youngin720]

very true didn't think about that one thakyou

 

[youngin720]

Ok so here we are the babies have not yet eaten any crickets i have put in there. they don't seem to be getting skinny so they may have eaten some of the crested diet but im not sure. im going to try again with the crickets tonight but im at a loss. I don't know what i can do to try and get these little guys to eat. if any one has anything I'm all ears. I have toyed with the idea of fruit flies but i don't know if that would make it better. I'm not sure if they don't have enough places to hide and thats why they don't eat I don't know. I really want these guys to make it so please help

thankyou to all

 

[Saille]

Try bumping up their temps a couple degrees. Also, how long ago did they hatch?
Sometimes newly hatched geckolets won't eat for the first week or so because they're still absorbing the yolk from the egg.
You can also try the poop trick that Ingo mentioned, but if they're not scrawny, they're probably just fine.
Even my adults go through phases where they'll eat voraciously for a few weeks, then nothing for a week or more, then again they get hungry.
They know what their bodies need better than we do. Just keep offering a variety.
Hope this helps?

 

[youngin720]

they were hatched the morning of the third. How hot is to hot they are about 85 during the day and no less than 70 at night. I was thinking of putting them in something smaller. thank you for the ideas

 

[Saille]

Smaller cage might not be a bad idea either. Their temps sound fine, you're misting them nightly, right?
I'm sure they'll start eating soon enough, it sounds like you're doing everything right!

 

[youngin720]

I live in florida so they are actually getting misted 4 to 5 times daily the air is so dry lately. I figure if my leopard geckos are haveing trouble shedding with a moist hide than it must be dry air im being fairly succesful at keeping the humidity at around 60 to 65 % I'm moving them today. they didn't eat any crickets again lest night but both of them have now pooped so this is good right?

 

[Saille]

Yep, poo is almost always a good sign that all is working as it should.
They're probably just living off the last of their yolk and will eat very soon.

 

[BlakeDeffenbaugh]

Sometimes Gekko can take a week or so to take up eating. What size cage are they in now? I try to give a hot spot for all my Gekko in the 90's and the cool end at whatever room temp is in my reptile room. My night time drop is in the low 80s at night. I've had the power flicker and my heater in there go out and not realize it and the temps get into the low 60's without any problem but I dont know how low they can take it at a prolonged period.