New female tokay

[jeninak]

Picked up a female tokay to go with my male. She rather small compaired to him but they are getting along. No aggressive behavior so far. I am guessing she is female from the head shape. She is to feisty to handle so I am waiting for her to get in to a position where I can see her underside through the glass I will just have to wait. But she was housed with another tokay that was more wedge shaped in the head so that also made me think she was female. And my male has accepted her so if she was a he I dont think they would be getting along so well. I have named her Belle. She is just to cute. And like I said she is feisty!! Up here in alaska there are no breeders for tokay so if all goes well maby I will start to breed. I got her from petco, she has a very harty appatite and is very active. Not sluggish or hidding at all. I just went to check on them and they are moving around the tank and doing the tokay thing..lol. Will keep you all up dated on how things are going.!!

 

[XoVictoryXo]

She is so pretty! congrats on your new addition! Good luck with her

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

Cute, but you REALLY should quarantine her for at the very least 30 days before putting her in with your established animal. Without doing so you have no idea what sort of parasites or disease she may be carrying that she could potentially pass along to your male.

 

[jeninak]

ok, I did not know that. I have a 10 gal I can put her in.

 

[Aimless]

unfortunately it's a little late. I would watch them very closely, and assume the male will also need to be treated if the female has any signs of parasitic infection.

 

[Kita]

You're also very lucky that she didn't turn out to be male since you didn't check because you would most likely have found it dead before any signs that you were mistaken, especially since you say there is a significant size difference.

Are you sure she is old/big enough to breed because your male won't care once he decides he wants to. She won't grow much once she starts cycling eggs and if she's too young it could affect her health so if she's small due to age I would keep her separate until she has fully matured. Breeding can get rough sometimes too and being much smaller could get her hurt more without the male intending to.

 

[jeninak]

I checked her underside last night she is female. He is about 11" and she is 8" He has the "dirty" waxy pores and hers are clean and small. She of good mass. Not skinny at all. Nice rounded tail, filled belly and legs. She also has all of her toes and sticky pads on her little feet. She is a very nice looking little lady. And as long as I dont replicate the "spring" like weather conditions they shouldnt start breeding any time soon. I don't want it to happen for some time any way. 1-2 yrs.

 

[Kita]

Sorry, I guess I should have specified better. Length makes no difference, it's weight. I've heard from multiple sources that 60 grams is a safe minimum, but considering this species can get to 150+ grams I recommend letting them grow more. I prefer to start my girls at 85.

From working around multiple species of reptiles, I can tell you the male is not going to live with her and just wait until you are ready for them to breed. Acclimated Tokays are that hardy and that adaptable. Breeding this year (intentional or not) could very well kill her since she is a fresh import (Petco does not order CB animals).

If you check other threads here about sudden female deaths, you will see many are first year imports that were bred right away. It's a matter of them not yet being used to frequent healthy feeding compared to being in the wild and that they are suddenly breeding at a steady pace for a full season instead of more periodically as they would in the wild since they are confined in a small area with the male.

Your intentions are great, I'm just saying your boy isn't going to care so long as she is in with him.

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

I agree with Kita. If you want to wait a year or two to breed, you need to keep them separated. There's no way to keep them in the same enclosure for that period of time and not have them breed. It WILL happen whether you want it to or not.

 

[jeninak]

How would I go about getting a weight? I have a gram scale but I dont know how to do it. Put the tokay in a box or what? what do you all sugguest?

 

[Marauderhex]

Easiest way to get a weight is to put her in a box and weigh that, then put her back in her enclosure and weigh the box itself. Just subtract the weight of the box from the total weight and you have her weight.

 

[jeninak]

Thanks I will work on that next time I clean the tank out. I dont want to handle her unless I need to.

 

[billewicz]

If you check other threads here about sudden female deaths, you will see many are first year imports that were bred right away. It's a matter of them not yet being used to frequent healthy feeding compared to being in the wild and that they are suddenly breeding at a steady pace for a full season instead of more periodically as they would in the wild since they are confined in a small area with the male.

Fist off, Tokay in Alaska? Way COOL!!!:biggrin:

Second, the quarantine is still a good idea. Just clean the enclosure and replace all of the substrate. His licking or eating her droppings is the biggest carrier.

As for breeding your fresh imported girl. Most of the wild female adults arrive in at about 35 to 40 grams. They can bred at this weight as they do in the wild because this is their adult weight in the wild, (Not counting starvation and dehydration from the trip.) Just do not leave them together to continuously breed.

As Kita noted, most imported female Tokay die of over breeding. The main issue is that their kidney's cannot keep up with the egg production and they go into failure.

The second part of this is that we, as she also noted, tent to increase their weight to about double.

I've spent a small fortune on lab work and necropsies with a leading reptile vet and have some observations.

The kidney's stop growing once the Tokay reaches breeding age. If we double the size of the animal, the kidney's are working double time. Then we add egg production on top of that.

You will see countless treads of female Tokay dying of egg binding. This is usually a secondary condition due to a total kidney failure but very few owners do the necropsy to confirm this as the actual cause.

Raising captive bred animals should reduce this issue in the future but in the mean time please limit her exposure to the male.

Good luck and have fun.

Michael's Tokay Hoard @ www.billewicz.com

 

[jeninak]

Thanks!! No I have not seen him eat any dropings, I clean them every day. I decided to leave them together because I dont want to stress her out any more. I clean the tank every 2 weeks so it will be kepts very clean. No mating behaviors, they keep their distance from each other. But when the time comes for breeding it will be cool to be the first in AK to do so. So next week when it comes time to clean the tank I will get a weight on the both of them and give you guys an up date. Thanks for all the input!

 

[Embrace Calamity]

Thanks!! No I have not seen him eat any dropings, I clean them every day. I decided to leave them together because I dont want to stress her out any more.

Um, I'm pretty sure the person's point is that, even if it hasn't happened yet, it still could happen, which is why it would still be a very good idea to quarantine her.

~Maggot

 

[Kita]

Thanks!! No I have not seen him eat any dropings, I clean them every day. I decided to leave them together because I dont want to stress her out any more.

1 - He doesn't have to eat her droppings to catch her parasites.

2 - Every two weeks sounds rather stressfull for the geckos since you have to catch them so frequently. If the tank is big enough to properly house a pair, I would say a monthly spot cleaning since they like to poop in a selected section and every other month a full cleaning. Plus if you intent on pulling them out every 2 weeks, there is no reason you can't set up the female by herself now.

3 - Pardon my saying, but if you have no intention of following our suggestions based on our accumulated experiences (many of us having a large number of Tokays we are working with), why are you bothing? You will make it difficult to find people willing to help you when you show you are not willing to listen. No offense intended, I am just quite confused here.

 

[jeninak]

3 - Pardon my saying, but if you have no intention of following our suggestions based on our accumulated experiences (many of us having a large number of Tokays we are working with), why are you bothing? You will make it difficult to find people willing to help you when you show you are not willing to listen. No offense intended, I am just quite confused here.

And not to get on the same band wagon of venting off at others when there's something else "bothing" you in your real life, how did you determine in my 4 or 5 postings that I wasn't going to listen to your "expert" advice?

The OP was more of an informative-and-suggest nature rather than "I will follow all advice blindly" or rather "I'll do my own thing and just troll here" ?

No need for your rude patronizing attitude :yikes:

 

[Kita]

And not to get on the same band wagon of venting off at others when there's something else "bothing" you in your real life, how did you determine in my 4 or 5 postings that I wasn't going to listen to your "expert" advice?

The OP was more of an informative-and-suggest nature rather than "I will follow all advice blindly" or rather "I'll do my own thing and just troll here" ?

No need for your rude patronizing attitude :yikes:

You must not have read my reply completely if you think that. What has been considered the most important advice given is being completely dismissed, thus putting both the male and new female at risk.

I decided to leave them together because I dont want to stress her out any more.

 

[billewicz]

OK, so for the purpose of education within this thread topic, I'll expound on the idea that a quarantine was not too late and really a good idea.

Even at this point separation would be beneficial to reduce the treat of parasite transmission. After which, cleaning the enclosure would remove the link in several GI tract pathogen's reproductive cycles through the stool of the female.

Now for the misgivings within this post. We see on a regular basis advise requests for help with, and postings about a new Tokay. Sadly, the new Tokay owner is rarely prepared to deal with a wild caught imported Tokay and may have been misguided as to the healthy husbandry regarding having a happy Tokay.

In most cases the new Tokay owner is in for a long, drawn out, sometimes expensive and usually unpleasant experience trying to keep their animal alive. The results are rarely positive and most folks are jaded after the experience.

So maybe one can see our sadness and frustration when it looks like we might possibly be in for another bad ending for an imported Tokay and it's would be mate. You would be hard pressed to find another more dedicated keeper, breeder and trainer of Tokay than Ms. Kita. And for her to unselfishly share her many years of experience, love and commitment, for the sake of this species with anyone is a true testament to her willingness to teach folks for the betterment of the animal.

I'm sorry you felt attacked in some way but she is not alone in our fervent commitment and passion to help Tokay owners better understand their charge. (I don't have over 300 Tokay because I think they will make me rich.)

We are hoping to redirect your coarse to help you possibly evert the same, and in my case very costly mistake, that most of us have made early on. (I lost a pair of very expensive albino Tokay because I believed the new animal was a healthy long term captive and did not require a quarantine period. I wish I had the truly expert advice of these good folks in my ear way back then. I might have not lost $1,500 in Tokay and much more importantly, we might have albino Tokay as captive bred today. I've never been able to acquire another pair like them in the 3 years since!)

I hope your Tokay do well and wish you the best of luck! I'd rather be lucky than good any day, but in the absence of luck, I want to be the best I can be by remaining teachable.

All the best,

Michael

Michael

 

[Kita]

Now that I'm off work and able to type more than a few sentences, I suppose I can be more clear if necessary though Michael seems to have summed it up best. I didn't really have time for a long drawn out question and explanation earlier, but I did make sure that worded things where I would not have felt offended by them. Regardless of this, it still did not seem to come across that way.

As Michael said, we have seen many people come into various hobbies where the keeper was possibly unable to fulfill their animals needs and some of them came back either in need of urgent help or with sad news. We try our best to help people avoid such problems to save both the animals and the keepers.

I can understand my limited experience not meaning much, but to get help from people as high as Ethan and Michael as well as the same recommendations from everyone here of various levels of experience, we are just trying to help you avoid what we have already seen and/or personally gone through.