getting a proven tokay pair...

[J.P.]

Hi guys!
I'm new to geckos, and my first pair of tokays will arrive this weekend. According to the seller, they are a proven pair. They were enclosed in a 20gal tank and i'm thinking of putting them in a 100cmX50cmX30CM cage with some live plants. Can i just put them in the big enclosure at once?

I don't want them breeding right away. I would like to get a few months tokay care experience before I start with tokay babies. What can i do to prevent mating? I've read that it's not good to separate a bonded pair. And that the male would make the loud mating call if his woman is away (i don't want that).

Since they are native to my country, i will not control humidity and temp to keep things natural. The front of the enclosure is glass, the sides will be mesh, and the back is plywood. The only thing i could think of to prevent babies is separate them or maybe alter the diet (low calcium???). Any better ideas?

Thanks in advance! I will show pics when i can.

 

[Emilylovesherps]

Welcome to the forum! You're gonna love your new friends

Whatever you do-don't reduce calcium. You will want to keep them as healthy as possible. As for a good breeding setup-I got my advice from a big time pro tokay breeder here in South Florida. He breeds crazy morphs and I really trust his advice with this species!
1. Decent sized cage 30-40 gallon
2. 75 watt heat bulb-red is fine
3. Cocohusk or cypress bark or even aspen bedding
4. waterbowl-not as important but just in case
5. spray bottle-spray twice a day!
6. *most important element for breeding* a ceramic planter or pot with a hole broken in the side so the geckos can climb up inside and lay their eggs. They will stay in here all of the time. That's why cage size is not AS important. Bigger, of course, is always better.
7. Feed alot of crickets or roaches with calcium dusted every time.

You probably have plenty of time before eggs hatch to get used to these guys. They are also great parents, so you can leave the young in with the adults and they will help raise them. I was also told that the babies willl eat the adults fecal matter to get nutrients and natural flora to help fend off disease. Not sure if that one is true, but it's not out of the question-Iguanas do it.

Enjoy them. You'll love these guys. As for the calls the male makes, you will find them endearing too

 

[J.P.]

Hi emily! thanks for the reply.

i actually like hearing tokay calls, and any wild animal for that matter. but i'm gonna put them in the house, so i want to minimize if not eliminated the sounds.

i guess i'll leave the population control alone.

but the environment control bugs me a little. since wild tokays live in the wild practically a stone's throw away from my house, can't i use mesh walls to let my tokays have whatever condition(humidity/temp) their wild cousins are getting? i got no problem with spraying and using heat lamps, i just thought i don't need it since wild tokays thrive in our climate.

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

Since tokay are native to your environment, you shouldn't need to do much of anything for them other than keep them fed. You will want to spray them daily as they tend to like to consume their water that way as opposed to out of a bowl. If you don't want them to breed, your only real option is to separate them. But as Emily mentioned, even if they breed right away, it'll be months before you have any actual babies. So that's up to you to determine how soon would be appropriate to have babies.

If you DO decide to add a heat lamp, I suggest using a ceramic heat emitter (CHE) as opposed to a red bulb. The CHE will last a million times longer and is much more efficient. But it doesn't sound like you're going to really need an added heat source.

 

[T-ReXx]

Although I wouldn't do it, if you really dont feel you're ready for babies you can always just remove the eggs and discard them. Though keeping baby tokays isn't much more difficult than keeping adults, and the parenting behavior is really interesting to watch.

 

[J.P.]

there is no stopping it now, i saw an egg this morning and momma tokay was guarding it.
am i to expect another one? and i guess the eggs will continue to come even if i separate the adults? the seller did say he suspected mating activity before i got the tokays, but he wasn't sure. oh well, if they want to breed then i wont stop them.

the thing is, i temporarily put them in a plastic bin because i have not yet finished setting up their home. and the egg is stuck on the lid. i was intending to put a roach colony in that bin. i hope that i will not mess up and ruin the egg. i now kind of feel lucky having it.

 

[J.P.]

some updates:
the pair are e few days in their enclosure now. they like to hide a lot, when they come out i seldom see them on the "branches", they are mostly clinging to the glass. i also do not know if they have eaten already. i left some roaches and mealworms on a dish, some got out of the dish so i can't really tell if they were eaten or just hiding.


my hastily made viv:

discarded 35gal fish tank. i pulled up some excess plants from our garden and picked up dry wood and fallen twigs from our backyard. i also put hides made out of paper mache.

the male peeking from behind one of the hides:

i hope to post more photos once i catch them up and about.

 

[J.P.]

guys,
it's been 3 weeks since i got the tokays. i thought they were eating the worms and dubia roaches i was putting in their viv because some are always missing from the dish each morning. but when i cleaned the viv day before yesterday, i found the insects under the potted plants. i highly suspect that no insect was eaten, just escaped and hidden under the plants. i replaced the dish with a taller one, and when i checked this morning, all the insects were there. i'm kinda worried about the female because she is not so fat. the male's tail is still big so i'm not worried about him.

the tokays are active at night, and i know for a fact that they both "pooped". i hope that their not eating for a long time is normal. has anybody experienced their tokays not eating for such a long time?

please help. i'm so tempted to "force feed". but i'm afraid that if i stress the tokays by handling, it will be back to square one in their accilimitization process.

 

[tokeh]

hi j.p.

nice to hear you have your first egg.:banana:
i would do anything to their huminty and heat. as you said they are native to where you live and they are naturally seen in houses so that will be fine.
i like your set up.
just make sure there is enough ventilation and thet they get their vitamins and calcium.

jeffrey

 

[J.P.]

newbie problems

tokeh,
thanks for the compliments and advice.

i'm dusting the feeders with calcium d3 and multivitamins, but the tokays are ignoring them. so after a few hours the insects are "dust-free". so i filled the feeding dish with calcium in hope that the insects will get dusted by crawling all over the calcium.

my tokays still aren't eating. the first tokay droppings i saw were big and moist, colored brown with white so i was only a little bit worried. but this morning, i saw only white droppings, no more brown. that means there is no more undigested food in their belly right? if yes, then i'm really worried now. i really hope they start eating soon. i'm afraid that they will continue to ignore food. i was really expecting voracious eaters when i got the tokays, it's a bit disappointing because i followed all the care sheets.

i feel that the tokays are used to thier home already. they are always roaming at night, even if i'm watching them. they're not afraid anymore, so it really bugs me that they still won't eat. i always give them time alone in case they want to eat in private, but when i come to check their dish, all feeders are still there.

 

[tokeh]

hi,
what kind of crickets orso do you give them?

 

[J.P.]

Tokeh,
i have not yet tried to offer crickets to my tokays. so far, i have given them superworms, lateralis, dubia roaches and the odd creepy crawly that i occassionally catch from the garden.

i will try crickets too, as soon as i can find a seller. thanks for replying.

 

[thehotchik1000]

HI,
From the experience Ive had with mine. You sort of have to get them used to eating out of a dish. I have a couple that Know food is in there but most want to hunt. To avoid the roaches climbing on the glass or out of the tank or even slow them down a bit cut off a couple of their legs on one side of their body. Or use crix you can keep them in a dish and try and condition your toks to eat out of it. Or you can throw the insects in there with the advice i have stated above. If you really want the dish try putting it in their line of sight so they see the insects in the dish. I use crickets worms and roaches with mine, but I avoid catching things bc of pesticides that the city sprays to keep down mosquitos and other things. I use Flukerscricketfarm.com to buy my crix they have good prices and cfedex to my door. Hope this helps!
Morgan

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

I put my feeders in tall "gladware" type bowls. The roach/crickets/etc can't climb out. I've had no issues with the tokay figuring out how to eat out of the bowls. I do however, make a point to put up against one wall of the enclosure and put branches, etc up to the top of the bowl so it somewhat fits into the natural environment as opposed to just sticking a bowl in the middle of the enclosure and expecting them to figure it out. Works like a charm for me.

 

[J.P.]

i put the feeders in a plastic dish. with a peice of heavy wood nailed down to the bottom to avoid overturning when the geckos go on the dish. it's on a corner of the tank, and has a sort of wooden ramp so the geckos see it when they crawl on the wood. i have seen them checking out the insects, but so far there are no feeders are missing in the morning. i see droppings all the time, they must be feeding on the escaped feeders. i have seen the female stalk an escaped roach, but i still saw the roach this morning.

i hope to post pics soon. and i hope to see the tokays eat. that will be a very happy day for me.

 

[tokaygeckoz]

your not alone my tokay gecko does the same thing i have been hand feeding him for about a month, hes healthy but just doesn't eat unless i put crickets in its mouth...for him.

 

[J.P.]

YES!!! i finally saw the female tokay eat a runaway superworm. this inspired me to free range the rest of the feeders, i released 5 more superworms and about 6 lateralis roaches in the viv. but i'm still gonna put feeders in a dish within in a day or two, the free range food is just to kick start their hunting instincts (i hope).

 

[J.P.]

Updates

the first egg isn't meant to be.:sad:


after a few weeks of worrying, i've all but given up on monitoring their eating habits. i've seen the female eat that one time only. ever since i added a new hide, all i ever saw her do was stay in there. but i'm not worried anymore, because there are days that i see 2 fresh pieces of gecko poop. that could only mean that both of them are eating normally.

here are some photos:

the male

the female

here they are together.

don't you guys think the female is skinny?

they are as relaxed as they could be in these photos. i've never seen their skin tone any lighter than this. when they are stressed they are very dark. do you guys think it's due to the dark background of their enclosure?

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

I think that they both look great. Both have nice big tails. Have you tried taking a fecal sample to the local vet to check for parasites? That certainly could affect their appetites. Also, perhaps increasing their temps a bit. I wouldn't worry about their colors so much. Some tokay just stay darker more than others. That male has a really nice amount of high red coloration. Very pretty boy.

 

[J.P.]

ethan,
reptile vets are hard to find in our country. but i hope that will change. 20 years ago there were very few vet clinics for dogs, now there is about a hundred in each city. so maybe in a few years there will be herp clinics too.

what i did for the meantime was to have some feces examined by a friend who was a medical technologist. she said there was no parasite that she is aware of, and a normal amount of bacteria. but i'm not 100% percent sure. because she works with human samples, it's her first time to examine gecko poop, so she may have missed something.

our day temps now are in the high 80's and does not drop below 80F at night. do i still need to warm up? i'd want to put a heat tape behind their hide, but there is none available for the past two months. as far as i know, Manila has only 2 reptile needs suppliers at the moment, and they both ran out. they said they are not sure if they will be ordering soon because summer is approaching, and demand could be too low for good business.