Want to be prepared!!!!!

I just adopted a male and female, and I was told that they mate and the female lays fertile eggs on a consistent basis. I have a Hovabator Incubator and I want to breed them and produce wonderfull little offspring. I have been searching on the forum for newb breeders and there seems to be mixed reviews?? I was hoping to get a great thread that would give me step by step on what to do, and what to look out for when your female is holding eggs. Any help is greatly appreciated!! Thanks everyone, I appreciate ALL comments and suggestions.

Welcome to the world of leos and breeding.
I have not bred leopard geckos before, so take that into consideration when reading this advice. :P

I would seperate them until you have all the information and experience you need. Its dangerous for the females health especially if they are kept together. Generally leos are/should only be bred during the breeding season (February to August I believe). If you breed the female too many times in one year she can become dangerously low on calcium.

Also if you are wanting to breed leos to create wonderful babies, you need to think genetics wise. What morphs are your leos? You don't want to breed two leo morphs that shouldn't be bred together (like albinos should never be mixed). Also, anything bred with normals with generally be a normal as the normal gene is dominant. You want to avoid breeding normals in a lot of cases as they are harder to find homes for than the "more rare" morphs.

Here are a few links to breeding leos:
http://www.reptileuv.com/reptile-caresheets/leopard-gecko-breeding.php
http://www.reptilecare.com/leopardbreed.htm
And here is a link to a genetics calculator so you can see what you should expect morph-wise:
http://www.lovegeckos.com/Genetics.aspx

The cool thing about leos is that they can be temperature sexed. You set a certain temp and they will most likely (not 100% accurate) be female, set a different temperature and they will most likely be male. I think thats really awesome!!

What do you mean by mixed reviews when it comes to newbie breeders? I have no problem with new people breeding leos (I will be one of those people one day I hope), but I only think you should consider it after researching it heavily, and ensuring you have the time/money for it. Breeding leos takes a lot of time and a lot of money. Everyone has to start somewhere.

I hope this helps, let me know if you need more

Thank you that does help!! I am not looking for profit right now, I am best friends with my local pet shop owner and I told him my story of recieving these geckos!! I have been trying to breed my Veiled Chams for 3 yrs and it is almost impossible unless you are a seasoned verteran.... Cham eggs have to be in incubation for up to 9 months. I have lost a lot of clutches do to miniscual changes in the eggs environmet. I am looking forward to this opportunity to try my breeding skills with an animal that doesn't have such a long time hatching. So anyways, I want to breed my male and female with (hopefully) great results for my buddy, and more importantly myself. I have an instant connection with these lizards and I believe they could become my "new" hobby!!

The reason there are mixed reviews and opinions is because there's no one right way to mate, incubate, hatch, and care for hatchlings. Your best bet is to read, read, and read. Personally if this is your first time caring for leopard geckos, I would highly recommend you getting used to taking care of them before starting to produce hatchlings. A lot of the mistakes happen when you rush into breeding right away without knowing how to properly care for leopard geckos in general.

I'll link a few useful resources that I've utilized when learning about breeding:

Since you use hovabator, one popular incubation method is the one described by Albey.

Here is a great general breeding guide by vmsherp.

Here's a great breeding on a small scale article on geckotime.


Good luck