ok male sizes and when is it ok to breed them.
You have to take a few things into account when you are trying to breed a male that might be a little small.
1) how big is the male.
2) how old is the male.
3) is the female that you are trying to breed ready.
First how big is the male usually when we are talking about size we talk about weight. also you have to take into account the length. some males get really fat tails and others the tail is not as filled out as a females tail maybe. (I’m not talking pencil thin tails here either). I have gotten males to 50 grams in 4 months. the other things to consider when talking about size is the genetic make up of the male. if it is from a true "giant line" its going to get bigger faster, the same goes for a gecko that is from an Afghanicus line it will be smaller when it will be "ready" to breed.
An other thing that effects size of a gecko. is the health of the parents of that gecko. healthy parents = more robust babies. the other thing that a lot of people don’t realize is that first babies from a female for that year usually grow faster then say the last clutch out of the same female. that is one reason that we incubate for males first because we want the most robust fastest growing one to be a male , because if he is the male of choice he will be breeding most of the year and you want a male that can stand up to the riggers of breeding.
nutrition of the parents and the babies is really important as well. well nourished parents = stronger babies. I’m not talking fat geckos here. just like in anything the gecko has to be a good weight some of our females actually go on a diet before they breed if the female is to fat she could have more problems with laying and producing eggs. usually fat females have a lower egg production then a "perfect" weight female.
2) age of the male. this is self explanatory its just the age of the gecko. just because a gecko is 50 grams doesn’t mean he knows what he is doing yet. Last year my Dreamsickle male was 50 grams in 4 months. most would think he would be ready to go. but he was to young he had no clue what to do. it took him another 2-3 months before he was "all about the ladies"
so just because they might be the right size they are not old enough.
3) females have to be ovulating! if your females are not ovulating they wont let the male breed. that simple. your male could be 100 grams and she wont let him. wait till you see the girl ovulating and when you first see the ovulation wait about a week then put the male in. if you put him in to soon she might not be fully ready. I wait about a week after I notice she is ovulating. then the male goes in for the night. and the next day he gets taken out. if she doesn’t lay good eggs with in 2 weeks he gets put back in. if she lays "duds" he gets put back in 2-4 days after she lays the eggs. once the female lays good eggs I would let her lay about 3-4 clutches before putting the male back in. if she looks too thin don’t put the male back in. FEMALES CAN LAY THEM SELF TO DEATH. don’t push them. most don’t do that but they can. they can get really thin and just don’t recover.
now as for your two males. this is where it can get a little touchy. what I am about to say is my experience with working with enigmas. other people might have different results. I have hatched a lot of them out of different bloodlines and have been working on them for a little over 2 years now.
first the enigma male. from the picture he looks a touch thin. (not a bad thing on what you are doing) he just might be acting like an enigma.
enigmas as you might have read, some do have problems I think most of them do in one way or another. breeders are working to fix it. but they are just a gecko to be careful with. they can have the spinning (walking in circles) and the "stevie wonder" head shaking and bobbing. these are things that you can see right away. things that you have to watch over long periods is there weight. Enigmas can stress out a lot easier then non enigmas. they can stop eating for what seams like no reason at all. breeding can take a toll on them as well. again this is not all enigmas but just something to watch out for. I have a couple of enigmas that got about 30 grams and stopped growing for almost a year and then like nothing happened started growing again. it was the weirdest thing. I have talked to a few other breeders that have said the same thing. so when it comes to breeding your enigma just watch. I would only put him in for short periods of time with females so not to stress him out.
the ethics of breeding enigmas is one that i wont touch. all i will say is They are a cool morph to work with, but they should be selectively breed to "work the bugs out" IMO also as i said in my post toward the top. the first babies are stronger. this is true for enigmas as well i have seen a correlation between enigmas being stronger if they were out of the first clutch. Then if they were one of the last clutches.
ok your Super snow male. super snows sometimes have an issue with growing as well. it is being selectively out crossed and bred out of them but still something about the supers they are just a little slower growing then just a Mack snow. its just something to watch. i have had a female super snow that was one of the first ever sold that she got to 35 grams at her biggest and never ovulated. i had her for 3 years. (now a friend has her as a pet) some supers get big and eat well. IMO they should be the ones that are used as breeders just to strength the morph. but its a hard thing cause like i said before the mack snow from the same clutch might be huge and grow fast and all of that. but the super snow from the same clutch might grow a lot slower. these are just things that happen when you are playing with genetics. some genetics give you effects that you don’t want.
in closing the best time to put a small male in is...... well you will just have to try the male. just make sure if you are using a small male, make sure the female is ovulating. i have seen females tear into a male. so be careful and use your best judgment. Also like i said before healthy parents = strong babies. it is something you have to ask yourself. Do i think that my males are going to give me the best babies? If there is something that is making the males smaller (genetically or something else) is it ethically a good choice to breed that gecko?
I’m not saying one way or another to breed or not to breed your males. IMO they are a bit small and if they are that old i would see if you can get them a bit bigger. but if you cant then you have to weigh your options with will the babies grow to a "normal" size.
i say "normal" because if they were females at that weight and they bred that would take a huge toll on them laying eggs and that is if they could pass the eggs. Some people might think that a 20 gram gecko would be cute but as far as being healthy and able to reproduce that is another story.
im not saying that smaller gecko aren’t healthy i just wouldn’t suggest breeding for it or even breeding a female under 45 and that is pushing it. i would try to get her as big (not fat) as possible. (again Afghanicus line geckos will breed and lay eggs at a smaller size. but they do lay smaller eggs as well)
the smallest male that i have ever tried breeding was a 40 gram male but he was from an Afghanicus line.
here is a study that i did 2 years ago. it was a weight to age chart that i was doing. i used super hypo tangs, sunglows, some het for things and some plain tremper albinos. about 120 geckos were used feed only mealworms dusted with Vionate and housed on there own in 6 qt tubs. what i did was took all geckos that were born the same week and weighed them and averaged the weight out and that is the average weight for that age gecko. some weeks had 5 geckos some had 15. but as you can see there is a steady growth increase as the weeks go up
weeks weight in grams
3 5.75
4 8.38
5 8.5
6 11.14
7 14.9
8 17.5
9 18.75
10 21.46
11 21.75
12 22.11
13 26.50
14 31.3
15 32.2
16 36.88
17 37.75
18 41.18
19 45.89
hope all of this helps
and good luck.
