Laurie Hess, veterinarian, ABVP (Avian Practitioner)
Geckos are the most popular species of lizard kept as a pet. Baby geckos can be an adorable addition to any family, and with the right care and feeding, they can grow into hardy adult geckos that can live for many years. The key is to educate yourself before getting a gecko so you can provide the right environment for them from the start.
There are over 2,000 known species of gecko worldwide, with a wide variety of colors and skin patterns. The most common species of lizard kept as pets are the leopard gecko and the brown gecko. Less commonly kept geckos include the day gecko and tokay gecko.
Newborn leopard geckos are usually 3-4 inches long. Adult female leopard geckos grow to 7-8 inches and males to 8-10 inches. Adult geckos, both males and females, are usually 4.5-5 inches long.
Many pet stores and breeders sell baby geckos so that owners can bond with their pets from an early age and watch them grow. However, baby geckos are more susceptible to certain diseases than adult geckos because their skeletons and immune systems are not fully developed. Therefore, when first purchased, they should be given proper food and care to prevent the onset of common baby diseases.
Once the habitat is properly set up and feeding procedures are established, caring for a baby gecko is relatively easy.
Building a Home for Baby Geckos
Geckos are usually kept in 10- to 20-gallon glass aquariums. Plastic storage boxes for storing sweaters can also be used, but they need to be at least a foot high to prevent the lizard from jumping out. 20-gallon tanks are suitable for larger adults or if you are keeping multiple geckos in the same tank.
In tanks larger than 20 gallons, it can be difficult to maintain adequate temperature and humidity, and geckos may avoid sitting under heat or ultraviolet (UV) lights. All enclosures should have a secure mesh top to prevent escapes and allow for ventilation. Small plastic boxes turned upside down with cutout doors and filled with moist moss or vermiculite can be used as hideouts within the enclosure to maintain enough humidity for geckos to molt properly. You can also add live or artificial plants to the enclosure to maintain humidity and satisfy your gecko’s desire to climb.
Baby geckos need warmth and humidity
Regardless of the gecko species, they will need supplemental heating in their enclosure. Heat can be provided by installing heater bulbs around the edge of the tank or by placing a heat mat under the tank. Hot stones are not recommended as they can become very hot and reptiles often do not leave before they get burned.
A gecko’s tank needs a warm and cool temperature range. The ideal temperature range for a gecko depends on the species. For leopard geckos, the warm zone (including hiding places) should be around 90°F, and the cool zone should be in the low 70°F or higher. Monitor geckos do better in slightly cooler temperatures, with a warm zone in the high 70°F to low 80°F and a cool zone around 70°F or higher.
The temperature of the aquarium should be monitored daily using a “point and shoot” thermometer available at most pet stores, or a traditional thermometer or thermometer that can be affixed to the inside wall of the aquarium. Heat levels may need to be altered from season to season depending on the ambient temperature of the room in which the lizard is kept.
Humidity should also be monitored with a gauge called a hygrometer. Ideally, humidity should be kept between 50 and 70 percent to keep your lizard hydrated and able to molt properly. Misting the tank daily will help maintain the right humidity level.
Most wild gecko species are nocturnal, meaning they are active at night, and therefore do not have much exposure to sunlight. For this reason, some reptile breeders and veterinarians believe that geckos do not need UV light. However, providing UV light to geckos is controversial, and some veterinarians (including me) believe that geckos, especially if kept indoors, would be healthier and less likely to develop common skeletal disorders such as metabolic bone disease if they received a few hours of UV light daily from a full-spectrum UV light bulb.
While wild geckos will live on sand or soil, these substrates are generally not recommended for pet geckos, as they can be accidentally ingested by the animals and cause gastrointestinal blockages or blockages. Paper-based bedding, such as recycled paper pellets or shredded newspaper, often used for guinea pigs and rabbits, is more suitable, as it is easily digestible if ingested.
For a more natural look, you can use reptile carpeting sold in pet stores as bedding, but it will need to be changed frequently as it will become soiled quickly with food and waste.
Feeding baby geckos
Leopard geckos are carnivores, meaning they don’t eat plants or other vegetable matter, but rather live insects such as mealworms and crickets. In the wild, geckos will eat insects as well as small amounts of fruit.
Baby geckos can be fed small crickets or mealworms daily. Insects should generally not be larger than the width of the gecko’s head. Once the lizard approaches adult size, insects can be fed every other day, with larger insects such as wax worms, superworms, and dubia roaches.
Insects fed to geckos should be fortified with calcium, vitamins and minerals (a process known as gut loading) before being offered to your gecko to ensure your lizard receives balanced nutrition. If you raise your own insects for food, lightly dust the insects with calcium powder three times a week, feed them with calcium powder with added vitamin D3 twice a week and a mineral supplement once a week before feeding them to your gecko.
You can feed your baby lizards insects in a small shallow dish that they can climb into and eat. If your baby lizard is too small to climb into the dish, hand-feed them one insect at a time until they are big enough to eat on their own. Only feed your gecko the number of insects they can eat in one sitting, otherwise the remaining insects may chew through their skin. Additionally, your gecko should be provided with fresh water daily from a shallow dish that they can drink from. The water dish also helps increase the humidity around the area as the water evaporates.
Leopard geckos will also eat insects, but to reduce their need for insects, you can feed them Repashy Superfoods Crested Gecko Diet as their main diet. This diet should be mixed with twice the amount of water and fed in a shallow dish three times a week, as much as they can eat at a time. The mixed diet can be left in the cage for up to 24 hours, after which it should be removed. Geckos eating Repashy can be fed insects once a week and given small amounts of fruit (such as bananas or mangoes) or jarred fruit baby food as treats.
How to hold a baby gecko
Baby geckos are very timid, so handling them when they are young will help them get used to being handled and become less scared. However, they can still be injured if handled until they are at least 3 inches long, so it’s a good idea to let them grow a bit before handling them regularly. It’s also best not to handle them for the first 2 weeks after placing them in a new enclosure until they get used to their new home. After that, 5 to 15 minutes of handling per day should be enough to get them used to being held, but not so much that it becomes stressful.
Additionally, reptiles absorb bacteria, other pathogens, and toxic chemicals through their skin, so anyone handling a gecko should do so only with clean hands. SalmonellaIt is also important that anyone handling geckos wash their hands thoroughly after touching a gecko, as toxins on the gecko’s skin can be transmitted to humans while handling the animal.
Finally, geckos will naturally “drop” or release their tails to escape if grabbed by a predator, so you should never handle a gecko by its tail – this can cause the tail to break off. Many geckos will regrow their broken tails, but the broken part is prone to infection, and the new tail may be a completely different colour and shape to the original. For this reason, it’s a good idea to hold a baby gecko gently in the flat palm of your hand, with your other hand to stop it from jumping or escaping.
The “hand walking” technique, in which the gecko sits with one palm outstretched and the other palm held out in front of it and allows it to repeatedly hop or jump up to the other palm (think Slinky), can also be used to encourage baby geckos to get used to being handled.
What diseases can baby geckos get?
Unfortunately, many gecko owners do not learn about their lizard’s habitat and nutritional needs before bringing them home. For example, gecko owners often do not realize that insects need to be filled with digestive juices or dusted with vitamin and mineral supplements before feeding them to their pets. As a result, baby geckos (especially those kept indoors without any exposure to UV light, which aids in the production of Vitamin D3 in the skin, which aids in the absorption of calcium from food) can develop metabolic bone disease. This condition is characterized by a calcium to phosphorus ratio in the lizard’s body that falls below the ideal 2 to 1 ratio. As a result, the bones do not ossify and remain soft and spongy, and may break or snap. The bones become weak and unable to move or eat. If not treated, these animals often die.
If a pet shows any of these signs, gecko owners should take them to the vet as soon as possible to begin treatment with calcium and vitamin D. If treated early, these animals can make a full recovery.
Another common illness in baby geckos is life-threatening gastrointestinal blockage due to sand infestation. These little lizards accidentally ingest sand when eating insects, which gradually builds up in the digestive tract and causes a blockage. These pets stop eating, become weak, strain to defecate, and eventually are unable to defecate at all. Lizard owners who see these signs should take their pet to the vet immediately. Subcutaneous fluids, enemas, and oral laxatives can potentially save many of these lizards.
Finally, a common illness in baby geckos is retention of molting due to lack of humidity. Geckos kept in environments with too little humidity will become dehydrated and retain patches of skin around their toes (reducing circulation and causing toes to fall off) and around their eyes (reducing vision and impairing their ability to catch insects). As a result, the gecko will stop eating, lose weight, and often die. Early intervention by a veterinarian to remove any molting that has gotten into the eyes, rehydrate your pet, and begin force-feeding until the animal is eating on its own can be the difference between life and death.
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