Can I have a female??

Kathryntheclean

New Member
Messages
28
Location
Forney, Tx
Hello, all! I have a beautiful male leopard gecko, who is about a year old now... He is despondent... He seems to want to mate, I think... But is it ok to house a male and female together? Some say yes, some say no... But he seems so sad and eats very little lately... What is your opinion???
 

acpart

Geck-cessories
Staff member
Messages
15,119
Location
Somerville, MA
Leopard geckos not being social animals, I doubt he is despondent or needs another gecko in the enclosure. If there are no female geckos around for him to smell, he may not even be triggered to mate. If you put a female in with him, he will mate and there will be eggs. You could choose to incubate them, in which case you'll need an incubator as well as more food and housing. You could choose to discard them, in which case the female will be using a lot of her physical resources for no good reason.
Many people feel strongly that if you house a male and female together, the male will endlessly hassle the female with mating and will wear her out or possibly injure her. I imagine that can happen with some geckos. When I was breeding I actually kept my male and females together for the entire breeding season, which was most of the year. In 13 years, I may have had to separate geckos once or twice. Usually what I found is that the males would mate pretty frequently (though not incessantly) from January when I put them in with the females until about June at which time they would lose interest.
To summarize, in my experience it is possible a male to cohabit with a female but it's not necessary and the resulting eggs etc. may be more than you want to cope with.

Aliza
 

indyana

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,336
Location
Massachusetts, United States
There are definitely safer ways to add environmental enrichment for your male than by mating. You could get more interesting cage decorations, offer new types of feeders, provide a box of Earth to dig in, etc.

Adding a female might perk him up a bit, but it would be a bit of a bad deal for the female, as breeding introduces risks into her life. Breeding females generally face a shorter lifespan.
 

happygeckos3

New Member
Messages
13
Location
South San Francisco
I have 3 male leopard geckos with healthy appetites that have been with me for about 6 years. They all live alone in separate enclosures. I don't think mating is the problem. Maybe it's the temperature in the tank? Make sure there's a heating pad underneath, so he is able to digest well. How often is he eating? After a year, they don't need to eat as much. And make sure he's pooping or he could be impacted by what he's eating.
 

Kathryntheclean

New Member
Messages
28
Location
Forney, Tx
I have 3 male leopard geckos with healthy appetites that have been with me for about 6 years. They all live alone in separate enclosures. I don't think mating is the problem. Maybe it's the temperature in the tank? Make sure there's a heating pad underneath, so he is able to digest well. How often is he eating? After a year, they don't need to eat as much. And make sure he's pooping or he could be impacted by what he's eating.
On an update, it had been 5 days, no food. I tried mealworms last night and he gobbled down 6 then 4 crickets. I think he just wanted something different!!
 

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