Housing 2 geckos together: Agressive behaviour, badly injured female, pictures

[Saskia]

It has been discussed several times the subject of housing geckos together and why is it better to house separately, a week ago this happened to a friend of mine, I asked his permission to post this pictures here, the pair was male-female, for unknown reasons the male got agressive with the female, with this results:



My friend found the female like that in the morning and went to a vet inmediately, she was given morfine and was stitched but she died 3 days later....

Bottom line: PLEASE always house separately, leopard geckos are solitary creatures, the do not NEED or even WANT company, and do much much better alone

 

[Embrace Calamity]

Oh god. That poor thing. D=

~Maggot

 

[catcubus]

I'm so sorry for the loss of your friend's gecko. This is a (sad) example of why they should be housed separately.

 

[Saskia]

Yes, it is very sad, I feel sorry for him, this is why I can´t say it enough to always house geckos alone! This wasn´t even male to male, this was a female-male pair

 

[Cor8et]

That happened to the Gecko in my avatar, two brothers kept together, when the reached maturity they started fighting with victor losing part of his tail and needing stitches on his side... my friend had them and offered me Victor...he was my first reptile.

Lucky for him he made a full recovery and living a happy healthy life on his own.



RIP wee falla

 

[Embrace Calamity]

Yes, it is very sad, I feel sorry for him, this is why I can´t say it enough to always house geckos alone! This wasn´t even male to male, this was a female-male pair

I do have to wonder what set it off. I agree that geckos should be housed alone because it's less stressful and more natural (to my knowledge) and obviously brings the possibility of this to 0. But then there are also many, many male-female pairs kept housed together that never have any issues. Always curious what's different with the ones that end like this.

~Maggot

 

[Saskia]

Maybe some individuals are more agressive/territorial than others?? I have observed that when males and females are put together in order to reproduce, the "normal" male attitude is to bite the female, on the back of the neck and on the tail, whenever they bite another body part (In my opinion) they are being territorial, just as they would be with another male.

A few years back I was intending to reproduce one of my females and I put her together with a male and I kept observing.... the male saw her, rose up on his legs, walked straight towards her and bit her right in the stomach, immediately I put my finger in there to prevent his mouth to close up, and removed my female, (she had a bit of skin torn, but t healed within a few days, leaving no mark), That was the first time I started to be aware that geckos (no matter the sex) do not always get along....

In that particular case (my experience) I believe it was because my female was housed with her son (a male), and I concluded that she "smelled" like a male.... I know, stupid me, it was a few years back, I do not make that sort of mistakes now, luckily my geckos survived my lack of experience back then, and a LOT of reading, observing and GU time have given me a lot of experience and I considere myself "experienced" now

 

[cricket4u]

We bring them into our home to care for them. So why would we risk putting them in such a predicament? I consider this selfish when it's bad enough most are confined to such small spaces. Who does it benefit? The selfish owner, that's who. How would they feel trapped in an room with a person who suddenly turns into a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde? If space is an issue, stop gecko hoarding which only leads to poor quality care. No injured or dead geckos, problem solved.

 

[Saskia]

I agree, I run a campaing against housing geckos together, I have found people that truly believe that they need a mate, or a "friend" (not the case of this friend, he should have known better), I try to give as many advice as possible but one can only do so much, every owner is in the end the responsible for their pets, I have come a ceirtain way with nimals in general since I was a kid, now I have knowledge about many subjects (not only geckos, also dogs, cats, snakes, arthropods, rodents, birds, etc), but I try to remind myself that all of us started somewhere with little knowledge, NOW I know ceirtain things that I didn´t before, i.e. when I was a young teenager I had a male dog and I bred him once, I regret it now, and I own an animal rescue and promote neutering and spaying all dogs and cats! Was I a bad person before?? No, I just didn´t have the awareness of the situation back then, 99% of people learn with experience and I can´t let myself to think I am better just because I now something that they don´t, that´s why i try and talk to as many people as possible about propper housing conditions, and I offer myself to help, check, and receive any gecko fom someone who feels that having geckos is a bit overwhelming, my first gecko was a gift and i knew NOTHING about them, this web didn´t exist back then, I made all sort of mistakes from housing on sand to housing with no UTH or calcium, the good thing I did was that I kept just that one gecko for several years (she is in fact still with me, fat and healthy) and I learned before I started having more, what I am saying is, we can´t judge everyone under the same standards, and we have to remember that no one is born with knowledge

 

[cricket4u]

You have stated a very good point, web didn´t exist back then Most of us had to learn the hard way. My problem is with people who ignore all the information available which we were not lucky enough to have. Obviously we have all made mistakes and hopefully learned from them. What I can not understand is the people who simply chose to ignore the information now available to them and then have the audacity to whine? HELP!!! Even worse they simply do not want to take the time to read and educate themselves. They want everyone else to do the work for them. Too many excuses..

I think we are heading of topic again..

 

[Saskia]

True, I like the askhole thread because of that, there are deffinitively more resources now......

aaaaanyways, do not house geckos together!! hahahaha

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Yes, it is very sad, I feel sorry for him, this is why I can´t say it enough to always house geckos alone! This wasn´t even male to male, this was a female-male pair

Just curious, Saskia. Can you find out how long this pair had been together?

I have added a link to this thread of yours to the Preliminary Advice section of the Leopard Gecko Caresheet right at the beginning.

 

[Saskia]

Yes, Elizabeth, they had just been put together (I believe he was attempting to breed them), this is how the female was the next morning, he asumed that male-female pair always get along, and clearly it wasn`t the case

 

[Mardy]

Just saw this for the first time via Elizabeth's link in another thread. Sorry for your loss, that looked awful. I too advocate keeping males & females separate. I've seen enough mating behavior to know that males can sometimes get too aggressive with females. Several times I've had to separate a mating process because the males were too aggressive. Often when a female bites back and says no, the male would continue and pursue the act. This can get ugly as both of them are biting each other and with the female fighting back, the male only gets more aggressive. I can only imagine what would've happened had I left those pairings go at it overnight.

And not only male & females, females can get aggressive toward each other as well. Many believe they could put two females together without repercussions, and often people don't bother observing them and assume all will be fine. I learned it early on that even females don't get along sometimes. When I first got into this hobby, I had put two females together. The first two came out fine, they are still housed together to this day. But the next two I got did not get along since day 1. I observed one female constantly biting the other female, randomly striking her, on the body and on the tail. I went out and bought a tank the first day and separated them real quick before they could cause injuries to each other.

So one pair worked out fine, the other pair didn't, they were all females. They are interesting and strange creatures.

 

[Saskia]

Yes they are!
I had a similar experience, 2 years ago I bought an insanely large tank and I wanted to keep 3 females there, I made it naturalistic looking, put 12 hides there, enough hides for everyone, several warm hides, several cool hides, several humid hides, several tunels, space or hiding spots were NOT the problem, I even put a second story to half of the tank, it was very large, and they had so many places to hide, climb, walk around, etc... I put the females there (all of them had been with me for several years, so I knew they were healthy) two of them were ok, but the third started biting and kind of chasing the others, I kept observing for a while (Something I always do whenever for any reason I have to introduce 2 animals together, no matter what species of animals) I knew it wasn´t gonna work out, I left the 2 pacefull females and removed the other one, those 2 lived together for a while and eventually I just sold the tank and separated them again, now I do not even try, I just keep every one individually

 

[PaulRyan22]

Wow seeing this brought a tear to my eyes and I'm a big dude..I have a female and male paired together now, never have seen them fight..They stay distant from each other but come out together during feeding and never bother each other. They're both a year old as of this month, if they were split apart now would that cause stress?

 

[Geckologist.tj]

if they were split apart now would that cause stress?

Yes and no. Anytime you relocate a leopard gecko into a new environment you can anticipate some short term stress. In the long run, they would be fine.

 

[PaulRyan22]

Yes and no. Anytime you relocate a leopard gecko into a new environment you can anticipate some short term stress. In the long run, they would be fine.

Ok thank you..Im really considering splitting them..Im going to bed heartbroken if I do..They look so content together. =/// But I would never want to experience the above pictures..

 

[Saskia]

They would´t miss each other, I can tell you that, the stress will be from the moving, but not from missing one another

 

[PitbullsareAngels]

This is plan sad , I personally wouldn't seprate my pair (2 females) as they have been togeather for 10 months and are sisters so never been without each other. Also originally was going to buy the one but then when I went to pick up the one I liked (Gamzee) consula my other one put her foot down on his head and kind of guarded her sister away from me and when I first looked at them they were snuggling in a ball plus being sisters I just couldn't. Also when I held them at home Gamzee would get nervous and would poop on me unless I had his sister out with him where he would get more venturous. They always sleep in same hid togeather, they do switch hids but never leave each others sides unless the others shedding where they give each other space and sleep in different spots. It only works because they have opposite personality's like ones spunky, adventurous, and never stays still and the other is mellow, layed back and rather stay in familiar locations. Since I had them for awhile they don't mind being held alone and Gamzee likes being held a lot more. But I don't plan to try putting any geckos togeather again, this was just an odd case that worked. If I had one out little longer then normal and put her back the other will run up and cheack the sister over and lick her on the face.