Hey all, my wife and I were intending to breed both crested and gargoyle geckos, but for some reason they keep dying off. Temps are all at an average of 77, never higher than 80 or lower than 74. Paper towel substrate, geckos 20grams and above are in 18x18 exoterras below 20 grams are in 12x12. We replace pangea every other night, changing up the flavor each time and all of them showed signs of eating and pooping regularly. We do offer bugs (crickets and roaches) at least once a week, some tong feed and some hunt. All are in their own enclosures and misted 3 times a day. As far as I can tell all of our parameters are good but we’ve had 6 of them now all at different times drop their tails and then stop climbing and within the next 24 hours are dead. What am I doing wrong here??
Why do my geckos keep dying??
- Thread starter MMast112
- Start date
- Messages
- 15,146
- Location
- Somerville, MA
How many geckos are you breeding? If it's more than one crested female and one gargoyle female are the deaths all from the same female? If so, there may be something hereditary going on that doesn't show. Your husbandry sounds pretty good, though I may not have misted that often, but I don't think that's it. Dropping tails first suggests some kind of stress. I have had crestie and garg hatchlings not make it but usually they just would't eat from the beginning. The only other thing I can suggest (not because I think it will solve the problem but because it's a simple thing to try) is to start them off in 6qt shoebox tubs which you can get for about a dollar from Target or equivalent. Other than that, I haven't got a clue!
Aliza
Aliza
Guess I should have mentioned that the deaths are of adults and sub adults we got to breed but haven’t bred yet. We did have a trio of cresteds together that actually did fine but once separated one of the females did die. At one point I thought it might be that they breeding age ones were getting stressed seeing each other through the glass but not being able to interact maybe?
- Messages
- 15,146
- Location
- Somerville, MA
One really important question would be where you got them from and whether you got them from the same place.
Aliza
Aliza
Two of them were rehomed from my wife’s friend, the rest were all bought from different breeders in our area, all with very good reputations
- Messages
- 15,146
- Location
- Somerville, MA
In that case, I don't have a clue!
Aliza
Aliza
Elisha9
Member
- Messages
- 43
Tank set up? Bio is best for crested geckos. Do they have enough to climb on? They fact they’re dying off isn’t great. What’s weight? Have the ones dying been bred at all? What sex is dying or is it Male and female?
Only one of the breeding females died, I believe she was 52 grams. The rest were between 25-40 grams, both sexes and hadn’t been put together since they were still too small. We did have the first three in a bio active but switched to paper towels because the first one that died had been getting mouth fulls of dirt and we thought that was why we lost her; obviously that was not the case with the rest of them. They have tons to climb on as well as multiple hides both in the branches and leaves and on the ground, dig boxes, and moist hides. This is why I’m baffled, I know the husbandry and tank parameters are good so maybe just stress from us coming and going in the room? I even went as far as putting those safe water treatments in our tap water for misting and drinking bowls thinking that was the issue.
Visit our friends
