Care Sheet

Ingredients:

*        Vivarium /  RUB (really useful box) min 10gallons, or 60cm x 45cm (wxd) for one.

*        Heat mat - to cover a third of the tank

*        Hides - a minimum of two (one at each end), at least three if you have the room and more if possible.

*        Moist Hide - if you have room for three hides one should definitely be a moist hide which will need;

*        Sphagnum moss

*        Thermometer - dual if possible so you can check the temperature gradient.

*        Water dish - that’s shallow so little geckos won’t drown in it.

*        Substrate - lots available but for youngsters you should use kitchen roll, when they’re older if you want to change to play sand or lino its up to you, we still use kitchen roll!

*        Furnishings - whatever you fancy!

*        Calcium dust - to dust the food with.

*        Nutrobal - to dust food with to provide extra vitamins.

*        Food dish for mealies - so with smooth sides so they cant escape.

*        Food - correct size so about half the size of the geckos head the shop should be able to tell you.

*        Gut loading food - this can be bought at pet stores or you can provide greens to your mealies prior to feeding your gecko.

*        Leopard gecko book

Oh and a leopard gecko!

Basic set up

Depending on whether you purchased a glass viv or a wooden viv influences the placing of your heat mat.  If you bought a glass tank (like we did originally) you should place your heat mat on the outside of your tank preferably with a small air gap between it and the tank to allow airflow.  If you bought a wooden viv (like we now have) you should place your heat mat on the inside of your tank, covering it with lino or a thick enough layer of whatever substrate you are using and we then also place a layer of kitchen towel down to help make cleaning it easier!

You should place a temperature sensor at each end of the tank or at least on the hot end to monitor the temps, and if you wish use a habistat mat sensor to help keep the temperature in check.  Temps should be between 30c-34c at the hot end and 20c-23c at the cool end.  I personally wouldn't recommend a hot rock or heat lamp for leopard gecko mainly because they need under belly heat to digest food and cannot judge temps well so may end up burning themselves on a hot rock.

There should be a hide at each end of the viv and one in the middle which I would suggest to be the moist hide as this should provide a humid environment for the moss hut in which it is likely your gecko will shed! Obviously extra hides will always be appreciated by your gecko as will other furniture for it to climb on (ours currently likes kitchen roll tubes) oh and a water dish!

We don’t have a light bulb set up in our tank and I know there are arguments for and against lights in leopard gecko tanks but too us it makes sense that they are nocturnal creatures so are hidden away during the day and there is enough natural light provided in the room she is housed in thus doesn’t need a light bulb in her tank but we do have some little led push lights in her tank but they are only there for our benefit when we clean her out.

Our current viv being set up with the lights turned on inside.

Feeding

When young we found that feeding the gecko between 7-15 crickets in one sitting or as much as it could it eat within 15mins or so usually seemed enough. Before feeding the crickets to your gecko you should either cover them in calci dust or nutrobal, you can do this using the “shake n  bake” method which is basically popping the crickets in a bag with some dust and shaking them till they are covered and also suitably confused.  Calci dust should generally be given 5 days a week and nutrobal twice a week.

Crickets are a great way of providing exercise as well as food to your gecko, they are generally higher in nutrients than meal worms and obviously very easy to come by.

You should make sure all crickets/prey are gut loaded beforehand, this just means providing them with a good source of food; you can purchase cricket food from pet shops or just give them something like carrots or greens

 Dusted and undusted crickets.

As you gecko gets older you will need to feed it less each day until it gets to the point that you only need to feed it every other day.  You may also want to provide it with a variety of prey, including meal worms, wax worms and locusts to name but a few.

Meal worms will definitely need gut loading as they are lacking a lot in nutritional value, I find the best way to feed them to your gecko is to put them in a shallow dish (we use a marmite lid), sprinkle dust over them then place them on the warm side of you tank as geckos need heat to help them digest properly, then your gecko will eat as many as they want and afterwards it’s best to remove them so they don’t escape and go and bury themselves into the substrate.

Locusts are very nutritional but also very costly to buy so really we tend to give them as a treat, same as crickets they will need coating in dust before being fed to your gecko and will need food provided to them whilst awaiting their fate.

Locust posing for a pic.

Wax worms are also a nice treat and are good for skinny geckos as they high in fat content, ours doesn’t actually like them but that’s ok, but I do know that geckos can become addicted to them so I like to think of wax worms as junk food for geckos!

Pinkies, I don’t have any experience with these but I do know that you can feed them to adult leopard geckos especially females that are pregnant/need feeding up between egg laying.

Handling

When you first get your gecko, its best to leave it in its new environment for a few days without interruption to get used to its new home before even attempting to handle it.  Firstly I’d suggest putting your hand slowly into the tank and just let your gecko get used to your presence, do this for a few days before trying to pick your gecko up, we didn’t do this and she once did hiss at us for scaring her and another time she bit my finger which didn’t hurt but certainly let us know that she didn’t like us being there.

Also never pick your gecko up by its tail and never grab its tail as it will drop it and it will probably scare you, and the tail that grows back will never be the same as the original.

 When we were getting used to eachother.

I’d suggest just holding the gecko over its tank to begin with just in case it decides to jump, and let it walk from hand to hand until its completely used to you then when your both comfortable with each other move away from the tank (this may take a number of days/weeks) obviously as they get older they tend to calm down abit, I know this because my mum-in-laws gecko used to hate being handled and so didn’t get handled very regularly when young , but now that he’s abit older he’s quite happy to be handled.

Not afraid of us in the slightest!

After handling your gecko make sure to thoroughly wash your hands as most lizards carry the salmonella virus, you should also wash your hands before handling your gecko in case you’ve come into contact with something that might make your gecko sick.