Breeder Chronicles: Upgrades

If you have read any of my two previous articles you’ll know that one of my main changes for this upcoming season is to acquire some new genetics to hatch some more sought after morphs. I was able to do just that last week when I struck a deal with Chris at http://www.kaizenreptiles.com for two female Mack Raptors, a female Mack Enigma and a male Nova. The deal seems to have gone smoothly and the geckos are set to arrive on Wednesday. He is liquidating his Leopard  Gecko collection and has some really impressive geckos left on his breeders page including an amazing Dreamsickle.

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So I’m looking at what I’ll have available for pairings during the upcoming season and I’m excited. I’m thinking that I’ll pair my original Sunglow het RAPTOR male with my SHTCTB and my Sunglow het RAPTOR females and then start line breeding the best of the bunch to see how bright I can make them. I also have an outlet for high yellow geckos at a local family owned pet shop and I hope to make more connections like that so I have an easy outlet for some of the more standard genetic combinations.

I’m going to breed both the new Mack Raptor females to the new male Nova. This will have an even split of RAPTOR, Nova, Mack RAPTOR and Dreamsickle. If the third Mack RAPTOR female I have is up to weight this year I might add her to this list so I can maximize this combination. My plan for the Mack Snow Enigma female is a little up in the air. This will be my first time working with enigmas and I have read that you shouldn’t breed enigma to enigma but I have also read that it is just a myth. If I can’t breed her to the Nova then I’ll try and find an inexpensive male Mack Snow to try and make Super Snow Enigmas.

I also wanted to update you on the progress with my roach colony that was started back in September. I thought by now that I would be feeding almost exclusively Dubias but I made a very simple mistake, I didn’t heat the bin up enough for them to breed. At least I think that is the problem. I don’t have tons of little nymphs running around but I do have a load of adult male and female roaches. When I checked the temps they were just about 80 at the highest point during the day. I watched some YouTube clips and settled on wrapping the heat tape up one side of the bin and taping it. I also decided to close the door to my reptile room so the heat from the Turtle tank and the racks would raise the ambient temperature in the room as well. I now get temps no lower than the mid 80s and no higher than about 90 so hopefully in a month or so I’ll see some breeding activity.

One final exciting update is that our website, http://www.longislandgeckos.com has been completed. It took longer than it should have but I think that it came out great. The most interesting feature is the ability to become a member through your Facebook account. By doing that you become eligible for member only discounts and sales as well as having first look at any of our available high end geckos. Our top shelf hatchlings will appear on the members only page for a week before being made available to the public. We will also have member only auctions on the site. You can follow us on our Facebook page for any interesing updates.

Please comment below and let me know what you think about the site, enimga to enigma breeding or anything else you’d like. Thanks for reading!