housing

[snakesnstuff]

I am considering getting some leopards for breeding, is it better to keep them in a small colony of say 1 male to 3 females or keep them seperate and introduce for breeding?

[latazyo]

I'd recommend seperate...at least at first, for health reasons

[crazyboy]

well you cant keep them together at first because you need to quarentine. but i still would not keep them together it could cause unneeded breeding, underage breeding whcich could lead to eggbound females, etc. What you can do is after the quanrentine you can put all the females together and just get another enclosure for the male. just be sure to watch the females to make sure they get along and all get to eat. good luck with them.

[snakesnstuff]

I'll keep them seperate apart from breeding then, i do for my snakes, i just didn't know if leopard geckos were social animals. Thanks for the advice.

[WingedWolf]

With VERY few exceptions (such as monkey-tailed skinks), NO reptiles are social animals. And none at all seem mind being alone.

[drewlowe]

Leos can be considered "social" herps. You can house them together after proper quarintine times. Like others have said you should keep the male in a seperate enclosure, except during breeding. It helps the female with stress, and breeding at too young of an age along with the risks associated with that.

There is a downside to this though, if one of them aquires a parasite you have to treat all of the other leos in the same cage along with quarinting them all individually. You will also have to keep a close eye on them to insure all of the leos are eating and getting along.

A good rule to follow is at least 10 gallons (of cage) for each gecko housed. So if i have 4 females i should house them in a 40 gal. minimum, so on and so forth.

I currently house 5 females together and my male has his own enclosure, even though i think he would rather be in with the ladies. LOL

Jamie