What You Need

To start of breeding crested geckos you will require a male and a female gecko around 32+grams in weight. Some people like to wait until the geckos is slightly larger and older around 35 grams as this mean the female will be more hardy and able to survive, bear in mind egg formation takes a lot out of the geckos calcium reserve. As long as you supplement there diet with enough calcium the female will be fine and not suffer calcium crashes and bone deformities so a good practise is to make sure you dust crickets or locust with calcium every feeding whilst gravid as opposed to every other when not gravid. you will also need a lay box which is simple a pot with vermiculite or potting soil approximately 2-3" deep under some cover so the female feels secure. you will also require a suitable sized tank for breeding a pair of geckos is the Exo Terra 40*40*40 for breeding a trio the 40*40*60 Exo Terra is best.

Male and female crested gecko
Suitable size tank
Calcium supplement
Egg laying pot

Egg Laying

once the male and female are introduced they will begin to mate within a day or so assuming they are both old enough. once the pair have mated the female will take approximately a month so around 30 days to lay her eggs, when she is near the time of laying she will begin to show interest in the lay box so make sure you keep the box medium moist try adding a little water each day and giving a light misting on top. When it is time for her to lay she will burry her back half in the medium and deposit 2 pearl white eggs which will be more pointy than egg shaped to start of with, in time the eggs will begin to develop and be more rounded as the gecko gains in size.

 

Egg Incubation

Incubating crested gecko eggs is a simple thing to do. you will need to remove the eggs from the lay box within 24hours or the eggs may begin to dry out. When removing the eggs be careful not to rotate the eggs as the embryo will attach its self to the wall of the egg and rotating can detach the embryo and effectively kill it. A good practise is to mark the top of the egg with a line dot or even the lay date if you have a fine marker pen, the ones used to write on CD's are very good for this. A good tub to use to incubate the eggs is a cricket tub if you feed your geckos with crickets you will have loads lying around so they cost nothing or alternatively a deli cup with a lid works well. Just make sure to add some air holes, fill the tub with around 2 inches of vermiculite and moisten well, so when you squeeze some of the vermiculite water come out. Make 2 indents with your finger and place the eggs in and cover slightly so you can still see the top of the eggs. The incubation temperature can be room temperature of about 20 degrees so placing the eggs in a draw will work fine and the incubation time will be about 80-90 days. Alternatively you can buy or make an incubator, there are plenty of resources online to build one from scratch or the hova-bator incubator works well and doesn't cost too much. With an incubator you can use a constant temp of around 25 degrees which will give you an incubating time of around 60 days

 

Once the eggs are close to hatching you will notice the eggs are very large compared to when laid and will show stress marks down the sides. At this point you will need to check the top everyday, once the geckos begins to come out the egg will dip and slowly but surely the geckos head will emerge this is when the gecko will rest for a while before exiting the egg completely. This can take some time so check every now and then once the gecko is out of the egg it will spend more time recuperating and exploring its environment. You can leave the hatchling in this tub for a day or so then it is best to move them in to a small reptile tank where they can stay until they are a few months old.