First Leachies - so excited!

[kscheben]

Well, after a month or so of preparation, I finally came home with my first pair of Leachies last night. I made the 2 hour drive to Steve Cemeli's house last night and after seeing his entire incredible collection, I ended up with an F1 pair of 2.5 year old Yate locale GTs. The parents of these animals were wild caught by Frank Fast so I'm hoping for some strong offspring from these guys if I end up being lucky enough to develop a compatible pair. The female is 260 grams and the male is 255 so they are very comparable in size. The male has a regenerating tail which appears to be coming in straight. They both seemed pretty flipped out after the long ride home. The female grasped her back feet together and went rigid in the deli cup the entire way home. She stayed this way when I took her out of the container until I showed her the new cage and as soon as she saw the cork bark and tubes, she "unballed" and jumped right into her new home. Humidity is steady at 70% and temp is at 72 degrees so I think the environment is pretty good for them. I will try to get some pictures posted over the weekend but as I got them home around midnight, I didn't want to start setting up a tripod and the macro lens. Thanks again to everyone who answered some of my crazy questions as I was doing my research prior to my purchase. I hope to become a regular contributor to this community now that I, well, have some thing to contribute!

Ken

1.1 R. Leachianus leachianus Yate locale

[Colin]

Congrats!!! A Gt type A Yate pair for your first leachies is insane... Let alone a compatible pair... Congrats again I can't wait to see the pics... Welcome to the forum by the way

[kscheben]

Originally Posted by Colin

Congrats!!! A Gt type A Yate pair for your first leachies is insane... Let alone a compatible pair... Congrats again I can't wait to see the pics... Welcome to the forum by the way

Thanks Colin. Just to be clear, I don't know if these guys will be compatible or not. There has been no effort to breed them and they are being housed separately. I'll see how they are doing later this winter and may try to pair them up. From what I've read, I'm not sure they are old enough to breed yet but Steve thinks I should try them together this spring based on their size.

Yeah, it was probably crazy getting Yates for my first Leachies but I fell in love with Steve's "Bubba" Yate at a show last fall and couldn't get it out of my mind. I tend to have a fairly obsessive personality and don't usually do things half way so for me, getting these two was pretty much in character.

Pictures will definitely be coming. I'm a nature photographer (birds mostly) so I have some high end camera gear and will put it to use with these guys. Haven't done much macro work so figuring that out should be fun.

[Colin]

Originally Posted by kscheben

Thanks Colin. Just to be clear, I don't know if these guys will be compatible or not. There has been no effort to breed them and they are being housed separately. I'll see how they are doing later this winter and may try to pair them up. From what I've read, I'm not sure they are old enough to breed yet but Steve thinks I should try them together this spring based on their size.

Yeah, it was probably crazy getting Yates for my first Leachies but I fell in love with Steve's "Bubba" Yate at a show last fall and couldn't get it out of my mind. I tend to have a fairly obsessive personality and don't usually do things half way so for me, getting these two was pretty much in character.

Pictures will definitely be coming. I'm a nature photographer (birds mostly) so I have some high end camera gear and will put it to use with these guys. Haven't done much macro work so figuring that out should be fun.

yeah they might still be too young to breed... I didn't see they're only 2.5 years old... Good luck pairing them up this spring though...Yates are my favorite GTs... I have a male from Philippe and he is by far my favorite of all my leachies..you're for sure gunnedit: Sorry Colin,I just re-read your post and saw that your talking about feeding response and being an F2.a love them... I'm dying to see them I can't take it anymore hurry and post pics!!!!! Lol

[that_girl]

Yeah...but did you look at any of Steve's chewies while you were there?

Congrats on the pair, I hope everything works out well for you.

[Colin]

my post got messed up some how..but I meant to say you're gunna love them and I cant take it any longer I want to see pics of these guys already! lol...I'll try and do an update on my Yate this weekend so we can compare...Yours are gunna be alot bigger then mine though thats for sure 260 grams!! pretty good for 2.5 years old.

[kscheben]

Originally Posted by that_girl

Yeah...but did you look at any of Steve's chewies while you were there?

Hey, thanks Krystal. Yeah, I did see some of the amazing chewies that Steve has on hand. Some of his pastel colored ones are just unbelievable! He also has several of the white shouldered morph and I know that they are considered a premium color pattern but they really don't do it for me -- I liked the plain pastels even better. I understand that chewies are more outgoing than the Leachies. I could easily see a pair of them in my future (as long as my wife doesn't read this thread!). I'm hoping that mine settle down quickly and start to eat soon. I just filled their food dishes with Rapashy for the first time and we'll have to see if they come out tonight. I'll keep everyone posted.

[kscheben]

Originally Posted by Colin

my post got messed up some how..but I meant to say you're gunna love them and I cant take it any longer I want to see pics of these guys already! lol...I'll try and do an update on my Yate this weekend so we can compare...Yours are gunna be alot bigger then mine though thats for sure 260 grams!! pretty good for 2.5 years old.

No problem on the post Colin. I'll get pics up no later than tomorrow night. I'm trying to let them settle in as they were pretty spooked when I got them home. I do hope they get even bigger as size was one of the characteristics that first attracted me to this locale.

[Colin]

I understand let them get their rest.. Im sure we'll all see them soon enough

[kscheben]

My lady Yate came out for a peak last night and actually fed after only 1 day in the cage. My male seems much more shy and has not shown himself since moving in. I set up the camera last night and played around with a few long exposure images. This was the best one taken as she started out of her cork hollow prior to eating half her bowl of Rapashy. I did not want to spook her by using flash so I tried a 30 second exposure at ISO 1000 under exclusively black lighting. It was so dark I had a hard time manually focusing the lens. The image was then color corrected in Photoshop to repair some of the chromatic aberations created by the black light. Although the photo has a lot of noise in it due to the extreme lighting used, I really liked the size of the iris which you normally do not see as large in Leachie images. When it is very dark, I guess the iris can really open up quite wide! The equipment used was a Canon 1D Mark III body with a Sigma 150 macro lens on a Gitzo tripod. I sure hope the male comes out soon but I'm determined to leave him alone until he acclimates.