Housing male and female juvie together

[Pasquale]

Hi,

I purchased my first gecko last October. She is a female dalmation. I love her so much that within the last week I purchased two more male and female approximately the same size (harlequin and orange tiger) in the hope to eventually breed them. So here is my question:

I put the male and female in the same terrarium because of their size. I put my other female who is older in a bigger terrarium. So she is separate from the younger ones. Last night the male and female where just staring at each other for the longest time. I really thought the the male was going to pounce on the female but that didn't happen, thank goodness. Am I doing the right thing by putting the male and female together because I am getting mixed messages, some say it's ok and other say it's not? Would it be better to take the female juvie and put her with my older one in the big terrarium and leave the male alone in his? Also, when you house 2 gecko's together, how do you know who is eating in the dish and who isn't? Both my male and female are also very very jumpy. Will they eventually calm down? Is there anything I can do? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[Marisa]

You should house males and females separately until they are breeding size or you run the risk of the male breeding with the female too early.

Since you have a larger female, a smaller female and a male, I would house them all in their own enclosures until the two females are large enough to house together, or all are big enough for breeding and you want to house them all together.

Even then, I advise people to always have the same number of enclosures as they do geckos, because in some cases even females fight and bully each other.

[that_girl]

If you don't have a gram scale, you should really invest in one. Females that are bred too young or haven't reached at least 35 grams in weight are really at a major health risk if they are bred before they are mature. Once geckos are sexable, I really do not recommend keeping them together because the male will breed with the female regardless if she's mature or not. Girls lose weight producing eggs, so if she's not at a healthy weight to begin with, and she drops weight you could be in for trouble.

[OctagonGecko729]

I agree with the above posters. I'd also add that you won't be able to tell who's eating and who is not eating. Personally all of my animals are kept in their own enclosure except when its breeding season, even then I only leave the males in for 2-4weeks and then seperate them.