Old Leopards

[Vicious_Fish]

Anyone have an "Old Pair" of leopard geckos? My pair will be 15 this summer. Before I google it to find out, I'm wondering if anyone has heard of them going sterile after a while. My two haven't been able to give me fertilized eggs in the last 3 clutches. It's no big deal, I've hatched around a 100 babies from this pair and I don't really want or have the time to raise anymore. At one point I had 4 pairs breeding but I sold/gave away almost all my reptiles but my original pair. They're my babies!

 

[dovii88]

wow man that is an older pair ...congrats..

 

[Vicious_Fish]

Thanks Dovii88, I'll have to post a pic of the happy couple.

 

[Vicious_Fish]

Here's my pair of geckos. I got the pair when I was 12 at a Reptile expo in Maryland. This is when the high yellows just started to get popular. I got a deal on the female one because she was born without any toes on her one hind foot. Now they have all kinds of crazy colors and paterns you can get. Personally, I think those lecistic ones are pretty ugly. My male is a wild type in color. They have producecd a lot of babies over the years. I keep these 2 on sand and I know some people here are very against it but I've had no problems. I change it once a month which is kind of expensive but worth it. I feed them indiviudally in a small tub so they won't ingest sand and because the male is very aggressive when I feed him. He snaps at anything that moves. One day before I would take them out to eat, I fed them a whole bunch of crickets. My male gek bit my female's twitching tail and wouldn't let go. She swung around and bit his front foot and took off 3 toes. He took off the bottom half of her tail. It has since then grown back but isn't the same. Other then that moment, they get along fine. They eat out of my hand but sometimes miss and get my finger!

 

[Z Trip]

Awsome!

 

[dougefresh]

they're both beautiful looking.......what a great pair.........

 

[large_cichlids]

nice...........

 

[Vicious_Fish]

I don't think most people have dogs, cats or cars this old. You can use sand but it comes with great responsiblity just like Spider-Mans powers. I change it once a month and clean up any poop as soon as I find it. I also soak my leopards in some warm water once a week to keep their skin clean and loosen any dirt or old skin. It sucks that irresponsible people have ruined the idea of using sand. I also don't feed them in the tank. So there is really no reason for them to eat sand by accident. But I wouldn't advise keeping babies at all on sand. All my babies I've raised were on newspaper. It's ugly but easy to clean!

 

[santoury]

Wow - that's awesome! They don't look aged at all.... This makes me wonder ... They probably live much longer, being reptiles... I think most people just don't keep them as good as you do.

 

[Vicious_Fish]

Thanks for your comments guys. I think a lot of people buy reptiles and think of them as disposable pets. I remember after "Jurassic Park" was in the theatres and everyone kid ran out and bought a green iguana. Most people didn't do any reasearch and they died in a year or they released them into the wild. I was one of those kids who got one but I did my reseach and my Iguana "Iggi" lived for 13 years until he died of a kidney infection. Reptiles aren't disposible! DO YOUR RESARCH FIRST!