Housing juvenile and subadult Leo's together

[Conched]

Housing juvenile and subadult Leo's together (or not)

This seems to be two fairly hotly debated topic here on GU. The size of the enclosure and housing multiple animals together. I specifically wanted to start a discussion of housing multiple juvenile animals together although these two topics do run into each other.

The growth rate of the Leopard Gecko is very different than most other reptiles, snakes, turtles, iguanas and specifically the growth rate from juvenile to subadult to adult size. Larger reptiles tend to growth fairly quickly the first several years of their life and then it starts to slow down. For example an iguana or python might grow a foot a year for the first several years taking a few years to reach adult size. At some point their growth rate slows down significantly although they never really stop growing that rate can go from a foot a year to less than an inch. Obviously these is under optimal conditions and availability of prey items. For the sake of this discussion lets talk captive conditions with a steady supply of food items. So here is where it starts to get interesting. Leos can attain their adult size in less than 2 years. In fact what starts out as a neonate weighing in at 2-3 grams can weigh over 50g in less than 12 months. That is some pretty serious growth !! That is a 2400% increase !!! That's right folks, do the math.....

O.K., so now we know the potential growth rate for these little gems and we know that it happens fast. Obviously nutrition plays a significant role here and that is an entirely different thread, but one thing we can all agree on is that these guys need to have a healthy appetite and heat in order to achieve such astounding growth rates. So where does housing multiple animals come into play here...

All animals in the animal kingdom compete. They compete for food, they compete for the best den or nesting sites, they compete to mate. Good old fashion survival of the fittest. Two things that captive Leo's, especially youngsters, are going to compete for are food and heat. This is where the problems start. Although the problems may not be observed they are happening.

Let's take a typical setup, say a 20 gallon with an UTH a dry hide or two and a humid hide or two, water dish and a food dish. O.K. so now it dinner time, you throw in a hand full of crickets or perhaps place a small dish of mealies in the enclosure. Who eats what and how much ??? Hard to say, but the odds are that instinct kicks in and somebody is going to out compete somebody else for food. Once that food has been consumed somebody is going to get to get the most optimal basking site. So, which of the 2 or 3 Leo's in that enclosure got the optimum amount of food and the optimum basking site ? Could be one, could be none. Most of us are too busy to notice or simply don't have the time to make the observation. The end result here is that competition means one animal will take resources away from another animal to survive. Now we are not trying for survival here, we want our animals to thrive in captivity.

If the growth in juvenile Leo's happens fast and furiuos and your goal is to grow out a large healthy individual that exhibits the optimum body size, shape and colors than housing these animals individually is the best way to go. By keeping them individually you take out the variables that can cause poor growth.

Irrespective of what your goals are, to breed or two keep as a pet, the first year or two seems to be the most critical time to grow out your Leo to its fullest potential.

Many people are successful keeping small colonies of adult Leo's together and that is a different topic altogether. My goal here is to discuss the early grow out stages of a young Leo and to discuss the optimum conditions for maximizing their growth potential.

So let's here from some of you seasoned Leo keepers. Any tips that you can share with the group ?

 

[Mardy]

Agree. Leopard geckos are definitely solitary creatures, they thrive when housed alone. There's absolutely no debate on that. In the wild leopard geckos are always alone. A male & female may get together for a quick copulation, but once that's done, the male is kicked out. Once the mating is done, the female will fight off any further attempts by any males that come by. Even the females don't stick around for the eggs to hatch, nor do they care about their offspring. Females also don't live together, nor do they hunt together like a pack of lions.

People sometimes mistaken leopard geckos as a communal specie. There are obvious communal species where you actually see them in multiples in the wild together. For anybody looking for optimal growth rate and optimal health, and a stress-free gecko, housing them alone is the best way to achieve it.

As for the debate itself, I think the debate is whether it can be done or not. I can't stop people for wanting to house multiple geckos together, but I always tell people there's no way to be sure if they'll get along. And even if they do get along initially, there's no telling if one will change its behavior later on. I've successfully housed 2 sets of geckos together. But at the same time, I've had to separate just as many geckos due to changes in behavior, bullying, or just simply random dumbness like one striking another's tail thinking it's food. I've seen enough to know it's just not a good idea, and it's not worth the risk.

I definitely support housing leopard geckos alone.

 

[cricket4u]

I've been planning to take some time off to relax, but I decided to share a quick true and sad story which I believe it's important to share.

A friend of a friend was an owner of a such a pretty female leo. She was housed alone for 3 years until the owner decided "she needed a companion". Of course I would have corrected her had I met her sooner. She bought another female leo which appeared healthy from a breeder, followed quarantine for 60 days and then moved the new gecko in with the first leo. Everything was going well for the first 2 months. Suddenly the new leo began to loose weight and so she separated them. She began having runny stools intermittently so she decided to take her to the vet. Fecal was tested and sadly she came back positive for crypto.

To make a long story short, she wasted away within 2 months and passed away. Panic sets in and now she is concerned about her first gecko that meant so much to her. Well, her first gecko appeared fine, therefore she never took a fecal sample for testing. A month later she begins to show the same symptoms and within 6 months she passed away.

I want to bring to everyone's attention that this has happened more than once. Quarantine was useless and this poor gecko who was once healthy could have been alive today if only she had been kept alone. So please take this in consideration. I'm sure you would not want someone to put your life in jeopardy.

Note:They were both bought from breeders.

 

[GeckoManiac91]

All this information is very thought provoking and educational... Personally I've always felt they do, do better alone (Especially at a young age!) however I never really saw the disadvantages or cruelties to it therefore I didn't think much of it. Reading all these stories (The one Cricket shared, the one in Elizabeth's Care Sheet and others thought the Internet) as harsh and horrible as they are, really makes me reconsider my stand point.

Even though there are stories of people housing multiple geckos successfully (Or so they say..) there are also the sad stories of geckos fighting and the transmitting of disease, both which can prove fatal. So it poses a risk none the less and any amount of a risk should be a high priority. I suppose you could make a stretch of a comparison and compare it to using sand for a substrate. Some people have success with it while others don't and its the gecko that suffers from being impacted which can also prove fatal. So I suppose the same goes with housing in pairs or trios, it may work, it may not but still the risk is there so why even bother?

 

[Iloveice]

Can 2 adult females live together? Or is best for them to just always be separate I really do want 2 Leo's but I don't have the space to always have 2 tanks

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Can 2 adult females live together? Or is best for them to just always be separate I really do want 2 Leo's but I don't have the space to always have 2 tanks

Very best to house even two female leos of similar weights alone for the reasons given above. 36 x 18 x 12 inch tanks are recommended as a minimum. Leopard geckos really are solitary lizards and do not need "companions" ;-).

Have you been able to catch up on this thread?

 

[Iloveice]

Thank you so much!!

 

[Conched]

Can 2 adult females live together? Or is best for them to just always be separate I really do want 2 Leo's but I don't have the space to always have 2 tanks

You could potentially keep 2 adult females of similar size together. You could also end up with 2 adult females that don't get along. You would need to provide a large enclosure as Elizabeth suggested and I would consider 2 UTH's and multiple hides so they both have their own space. You need to be prepared for the fact they might not get along and ultimately have to give one up or get another enclosure.

Many breeders successfully keep breeding groups together but they also end up having to separate them it is a crap shoot.

I would definetly think hard about introducing a juvenile into the same enclosure as an adult. That could end poorly.

I am sure some folks on this site keep multiple adults together, perhaps some will chime in with their 2 cents.

 

[Iloveice]

Ok thank you

 

[acpart]

I think the OP was talking specifically about housing juveniles and hatchlings together as opposed to adults. On the housing adults front, if people would like to post their feelings about this issue, I encourage you to check out the Gecko Time article from 2 weeks ago and to submit a response, which will be published the second week in August: Prose and Controversies: Individual or Group Housing? | Gecko Time

Here's my experience with housing hatchlings/juveniles together:
This is my 9th season breeding. Most of my leo hatchlings are kept in front opening 30"x12" enclosures. The enclosures are divided into 3 sections, each section being 10"x12". I keep pairs of hatchlings, usually clutchmates, in each section. Yes, I know that it can be difficult to achieve a temp gradient with this small space, though through taking the temperatures I have seen that I am maintaining one. Yes, it's small space for 2 leos, but this is how they're kept when they're pretty small. My hatchlings are fed mealworms from a dish. They are fed every night, handled and carefully observed. Geckos are separated or recombined for the following reasons: any gecko with special needs (deformity, failure to thrive --fortunately none this season so far) is kept individually, size discrepancy results in re-shuffling so similarly sized geckos are kept together, bullying (I have not observed this at all with hatchlings in my care) would result in keeping individually or reshuffling. Once the geckos have grown out a bit, I keep them in small groups in larger enclosures. Right now my 3 largest hatchlings are kept in an 18"x18"x12" (high) exo-terra. I have found my hatchlings to be consistently healthy and large --most are 10-15 grams by the time they're 6 weeks old (I just weighed 4 that are that age to check this).
So why do I do this? I could replace all my shelves and glass enclosures with racks and keep my babies (I produce about 50 a year) individually in racks. What it comes down to is that I just don't like keeping my geckos in drawers. Please understand that I'm not saying it's a bad thing, plenty of people do it successfully and have reasons (which I fully believe) as to why it's good for the geckos. I just don't feel comfortable doing it. I do have a 16-tub hatchling rack where I keep my fat tail, banded gecko and overflow leo babies, but my preference is to move them out of there as soon as there's space in the glass enclosures.
I feel I am willing to look at the geckos objectively and recognize it if a situation develops that is bad for the geckos. However, my experience over the past 8 years is that my method produces healthy, well-grown juvies where there is rarely a significant size difference between cage-mates (and if there starts to be, they get "reassigned", but this does not happen very often and hasn't happened yet this season).

Aliza

 

[Iloveice]

Ok thank you very much for your time.

 

[Conched]

I think the OP was talking specifically about housing juveniles and hatchlings together as opposed to adults. On the housing adults front, if people would like to post their feelings about this issue, I encourage you to check out the Gecko Time article from 2 weeks ago and to submit a response, which will be published the second week in August: Prose and Controversies: Individual or Group Housing? | Gecko Time

Here's my experience with housing hatchlings/juveniles together:
This is my 9th season breeding. Most of my leo hatchlings are kept in front opening 30"x12" enclosures. The enclosures are divided into 3 sections, each section being 10"x12". I keep pairs of hatchlings, usually clutchmates, in each section. Yes, I know that it can be difficult to achieve a temp gradient with this small space, though through taking the temperatures I have seen that I am maintaining one. Yes, it's small space for 2 leos, but this is how they're kept when they're pretty small. My hatchlings are fed mealworms from a dish. They are fed every night, handled and carefully observed. Geckos are separated or recombined for the following reasons: any gecko with special needs (deformity, failure to thrive --fortunately none this season so far) is kept individually, size discrepancy results in re-shuffling so similarly sized geckos are kept together, bullying (I have not observed this at all with hatchlings in my care) would result in keeping individually or reshuffling. Once the geckos have grown out a bit, I keep them in small groups in larger enclosures. Right now my 3 largest hatchlings are kept in an 18"x18"x12" (high) exo-terra. I have found my hatchlings to be consistently healthy and large --most are 10-15 grams by the time they're 6 weeks old (I just weighed 4 that are that age to check this).
So why do I do this? I could replace all my shelves and glass enclosures with racks and keep my babies (I produce about 50 a year) individually in racks. What it comes down to is that I just don't like keeping my geckos in drawers. Please understand that I'm not saying it's a bad thing, plenty of people do it successfully and have reasons (which I fully believe) as to why it's good for the geckos. I just don't feel comfortable doing it. I do have a 16-tub hatchling rack where I keep my fat tail, banded gecko and overflow leo babies, but my preference is to move them out of there as soon as there's space in the glass enclosures.
I feel I am willing to look at the geckos objectively and recognize it if a situation develops that is bad for the geckos. However, my experience over the past 8 years is that my method produces healthy, well-grown juvies where there is rarely a significant size difference between cage-mates (and if there starts to be, they get "reassigned", but this does not happen very often and hasn't happened yet this season).

Aliza

Curious, have you ever hatched any and kept them as a group straight through to adulthood ?

 

[Conched]

One thing I would love to know is if any breeders have experience raising juveniles in both pairs and individually. Here are some questions?

Is there any potential variation in adult length based on growing out in groups vs individually ?

Do the individually raised animals end up heavier than the group raised ?

Do they grow out to adulthood faster than group raised ?

If somebody were to tell me that on average their individually raised animals were on average 10-20 grams heavier or 1 - 2 cm larger than group raised it would certainly be useful data. I would think these are observations that most breeders would be able to ascertain.

 

[acpart]

I haven't kept that kind of data on my geckos. I have had geckos kept in pairs or a small group reach 50 grams in 3 months, but that is unusual. Since, in all my breeding years, nearly all the "normal" geckos (and that's upwards of 90% of them) have been kept in pairs, or groups of 4-5, I have a similar baseline with all of them. Given that similar baseline, I have had overall some extreme size differnce (like the one described above). I have found in general that the size differences seem to be more due to individual temperament than to housing conditions. For example, the gecko that reached 50 grams in 3 months was voracious from even before its first shed. On the other hand, I've had geckos that just didn't "get" the "mealworms in a dish" thing and had to be hand fed. Some of these geckos were 7 grams at 3 months of age. In most cases, their "eating" switch got flipped on much later, sometimes at 4-6 months and they suddenly took off.

I have very little experience with keeping a group of hatchlings together through adulthood since I sell nearly all of my hatchlings. However, I do keep my breeding colonies together in small (1.2) groups about 9-10 months of the year and my females are together year-round, with mixing and matching as each new season starts. Consequently, if I hold back a hatchling, it has been in a small group its entire life, though not with the same geckos. My female breeders, by the way, are generally 50-80 grams once they recover from the breeding season.

Aliza

 

[Conched]

I haven't kept that kind of data on my geckos. I have had geckos kept in pairs or a small group reach 50 grams in 3 months, but that is unusual. Since, in all my breeding years, nearly all the "normal" geckos (and that's upwards of 90% of them) have been kept in pairs, or groups of 4-5, I have a similar baseline with all of them. Given that similar baseline, I have had overall some extreme size differnce (like the one described above). I have found in general that the size differences seem to be more due to individual temperament than to housing conditions. For example, the gecko that reached 50 grams in 3 months was voracious from even before its first shed. On the other hand, I've had geckos that just didn't "get" the "mealworms in a dish" thing and had to be hand fed. Some of these geckos were 7 grams at 3 months of age. In most cases, their "eating" switch got flipped on much later, sometimes at 4-6 months and they suddenly took off.

I have very little experience with keeping a group of hatchlings together through adulthood since I sell nearly all of my hatchlings. However, I do keep my breeding colonies together in small (1.2) groups about 9-10 months of the year and my females are together year-round, with mixing and matching as each new season starts. Consequently, if I hold back a hatchling, it has been in a small group its entire life, though not with the same geckos. My female breeders, by the way, are generally 50-80 grams once they recover from the breeding season.

Aliza

Thanks for sharing. I am finding some of the articles on your Gecko Time blog to be extremely informative as well.

 

[Mardy]

Aliza's gecko time blogs are awesome, helped me tons when I first got started.

 

[acpart]

Thanks for the good words about Gecko Time. Remember, the articles aren't all written like me. You too can be an author. Just come up with a topic and contact me!

Aliza