YAY!!!!!

Woo hooo! i finaly got to go and get my very first baby leopard gecko today!!
ok
so i got paid and i went into my local petstore, and i know your
cringing at the thought of it, a local pet store is usually awful but
these guys aren't like most pet stores, they actually look into the
animals they keep, they take such good care of their pets, and their
leopard geckos are all captive breed.
anyways so i go in there today
and they had such cute little babies. so anyways the lady lifts up
their little hide and i reach in and they all start hissing at me like
"no no get away! no i was sleeping! i know they were scared but it was
so freaking cute! XD im so evil.. anyways i ended up choosing a
beautiful little aptor sunglow (at least that's what they said she was, i am going to have to post pictures of her a little later cause i don't
want to stress her out any more then she has to.) they said all of them
had been temp hatched as females. so hopefully they are right
and i don't end up naming her a girly name just to find out its a boy
XD. but as soon as i picked her up she was calm and licking my hand to
see what i was. i looked into her eyes and fell in love.... my husband
actually liked the snow they had in there and i have to admit it was
beautiful but the snow was a bit more skittish and i just loved this
little girls eyes. so we got her some mealworms and a temperature
control (when i had tested her heat mat in her cage before i got her it
went all the way up to 101 so i thought i better get a control just to
make things perfect) as we walked out of the store and stepped into the
sunlight the poor little thing was like... "whats going on? AAHHHH MY
EYES!! IM BLIND ITS SO BRIGHT!!" i felt so bad XD, so
we rushed home and while i hooked up the temp control my husband had
opened the plastic container she was in and she crawled out onto his leg
and just sat there for about 5 minutes and then she tried to burrow
into our blankets. luckily i was done and gently took her to her new
home. as soon as i set her down she was like "hide!" and booked it into
her little warm hide ( i have it set at 89-90*F i hope that's right)
every couple minutes she pokes her head out of the hide to see whats
going on then shrinks back in. she is so cute i cant stand it! here is a
picture of the cage set up. i decided to be all different and go with a
more "grasslands" theme i know that her tank is a bit more green then
were they come from but i don't think she will mind for now ^_^


as you can see her warm hide is on the right along with her little
hammock, her cool hide / shed box is on the left and then the log in
the middle is hallow so she can hide in there and crawl to the top were
there is a little mushroom ledge for her if she wants to sit on it. she
has a water dish and i am going to try and hand feed her every day even
if that's just dropping a meal worm in front of her and making sure she
eats it. so yeah what do you guys think?
oh and i forgot how often and how many do you feed the babies?

You should attempt to feed babies every day, since your feeding mealies just drop them in front of her till she stops going for them.

As for temps your doing good, I shoot for the 92-94 range, but I'm always above 90. Your setup looks good, might I suggest a little bottle cap from a two liter or the like filled with calcium powder so she can get any extra she needs!

Can't wait for pics!

thanks! i was asking around about the supplements and i had gotten repashy calcium plus by t-rex and Kermit had said i shouldn't put a cap full as long as i dust her food every day with it and gut load the mealies, that it should be enough for her because i don't want to give her to much calcium.

The thing is, it's hard to "dust" mealies. It doesn't stick like it does to crickets. It also depends on what you're gut loading the worms with.

well i read that if you mist them gently and then powder them it sticks well. and i was going to try and gut load them with carrots apple slices wheat bran as substrate and some blue buffalo dog kibble. whats your suggestion?

That sounds like a good regiment for gut loading, except the blue buffalo dog kibble. Go with Hills Science Diet, it doesn't have all that "crap" that blue buffalo contains.

Congrats on your new friend



Let's not turn this into a dog food debate please and neither are actually "top quality foods" Vet recommended or not Hills is a bunch of filler and junk and barely meets AAFCO standards... I won't even get into blue again...



As far as the repashy calcium plus it is a highly sticky suppliment. I never have any problem getting my supers dusted it sticks jsut fine wout out misting the bugs. Also if you add crushed dog food to yoru oats bedding... it will mold (found this out the fun hard way) and ruin your bedding. Better to use dried fish flakes if you want an added boost to your bedding gutload regimin. You DO NOT leave another dish of calcium in the viv for your leo unless it is extremely young (under a month old) or is a laying female. Dusting every feeding for a juvie should be all yu need esp. if you're properly gutloading your feeders with fresh veggies insted of a premade commericial gutload solution.



Also Juvie leos require a hotter tank than your average sub adult/adult. I like to see juvies hot spot between 90-96*F. If you're providing the proper temp gradient your leo should theromregulate just fine. If you find your leo constantly in a cooler spot or avoiding the hot hide then drop it down to 90-94*F. Juvies have a harder time digesting food since it's still a new and developing system so we should provide them all the support we can in these crucial stages.



Congrats again... can't wait to see pix of the lil one

congrats on your new little friend



can't wait to see some pics of the little one

congrates on the new little one... cant wait to see pictures and enjoy

Congrats on your new little one. I am sure she is going to gorgeous. HAHA, I am sitting outside with my lap top and I keep looking at your picture and looking and looking and in this lighting the papertowel looks like sand. I kept wondering to myself why you would have her on sand.....then I realize that it is only paper towel.

lol your so funny smsararas2, but no worries there is gonna be no sand for this little one. i wouldn't even think of taking that risk i want her as healthy as possible.

thanks every one, i hope to get pictures of her soon, its funny tho last night she kept wondering around the tank and so i would grab the camera and try and get over to the cage and she would see me and slowly go into a hide lol so until i start handling her i don't think i will be able to get any good pictures.

thanks Kermit for clearing up the dusting question. and for the advice about the fish flakes its good to know i don't have to grind up dog food anymore lol also i was wondering i know you said to turn the temp up and i actaully did last night because her tank was rather cold on the cool side, so i turned it up to around 93 95 and covered the screen top most of the way with a baby fleece blanket. the cage was getting to be around 70 f on the cool side so i was trying to keep it warm and the weird thing is, she likes hiding in her little log cool hide most of the time. is that ok? and some good news is i got her to eat 3 or 4 dusted mealies last night. so that made me happy.