Pet shops or Breeder: Which is the best choice?

Often times we walk into a pet shop and see the cute little birdie or the awesome lizard and right off the bat we want to take them home without even considering any other options. Truth is, this is the worst place to buy your new best friend. While there are exceptions to every rule of thumb, most pet shops care more about the price of the pet than its overall well being. That cute little puppy will be sold to anyone who walks in the door with a dollar in their pocket. Without regard to the animal itself. 

Blue, the Blue and Gold Macaw.

While there are a few out there that does show some concern about their animals, most of them don’t even take the time to know the animals scientific name. If your not update to date on the science of a particular animal how can you even give husbandry advice about it. Why would you take the time to learn such basic and fundamental information, after all the only thing that is in the pet shop proprietors mind is if there is a societal interest in an animal as a potential pet. Most see a pet as a source of revenue much like cattle are to the fast food industry. The whole image of the pet shop is wrong.

The idea is to sell pets instead of inform about the animals in an accurate way. The animals in a pet shop are viewed as products over living breathing creatures. In most instances that animals are kept in bare minimal conditions. Most are stressed, unhappy and at time unhealthy. Next time you go into a pet shop take an actual look around. Look past the cosmetics and assess the real situation. Are there too many animals in cages? Do the animals look happy and stress free? Is there enough toys in the cages to accommodate the number of animals in those cages? How does the size of the cages compare to the size or amount of animals in those cages? Are the heating and lighting requirements met in the reptile terrariums? With these questions in mind, you’ll at least find a few of the answers unsatisfactory. Pet shops should sell pet products only and not pets. Pets should be adopted from a breeder or rescue.

Breeders spend time with the animals and make the pets happy and content enough that they choose to breed. They’re the most knowledgeable about the various species that they breed. They also know the age, gender, birthdate, and parents of the animals. Most pet shops barely know where their animals come from let alone the age or temperament of the parents. In most cases breeders can tell a little about your pets personality such as activeness and likes. A breeder can help troubleshoot any potential problems that may come up. They’ve most likely hat to deal with the problem before as well. Breeders take pride in their animals and care about where their animals go. They take time to get to know the potential pet owners and determine if their animals are a good fit for that person. The animals are fed the correct diets to insure their health. For certain types of animals, the breeders will take the newly born babies to a veterinarian for a check up determining the babies overall health. 

Creature, I adopted her as a kitten from a neighbor.

 

While not all breeders treat their animals the same, from my experience most care for their pets far better than pet shops do in general. Pet shops are a great place for supplies but, aren’t the right place to get a new best friend. Due to the vary nature of supply and demand pets don’t belong in shops. They belong with the people who love them. The breeders. Not in a cage barely getting by. Living every single day in minimal conditions, hoping someone walks in buys them and takes them home, away from a dreadful place. The thing is, if they’re lucky they could find someone who will love them throughout their entire lives but, in a pet shop, who knows.

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Gecko's As Pets

These lizards in my opinion are one of the best beginner reptiles someone can get. With the scientific name of Eublepharis macularius. These pets all have different personalities and attitudes. They are the easiest to care for as far as food, and space. One gecko can live in a 10 gallon tank for its entire life. These reptile are nocturnal with means they sleep during the day and are awake at night. So when purchasing this pet consider when you are home. I work during the day so I get to see the geckos at night when they are most active. They are pretty docile lizards and some don't mind being held for a little while but like other reptiles they don't really need to be held or showed affection. Below I will get more specific about needs and breeding etc..

Feeding: Every reptile owner feeds their animals in different ways. I will discuss how I do it and what works for me. Through trial and error I have messed around with different foods and methods. I found that in general all these lizards need to eat is meal worms. Other people say that you need to switch foods around because the gecko will get bored and not eat. I have found that this is not true. All I feed my geckos is meal worms. Depending if I have a gecko that needs to gain more weight I feed them wax worms because they contain more fats. I feed these worms just for this reason only. You cant feed wax worms every day because they are all fat and low on nutrition. I have spoke with multiple high end breeders from all over the country and they all use just meal worms for their normal diet. Some owners like to use crickets for a normal diet but for me they are a little bit of a pain. Crickets are noisy, and require a entire home/care center to keep them alive until they are ready to feed to the gecko. Meal worms can be refrigerated until ready to feed. Like other lizards geckos require calcium. I use calcium and supplements to dust the mealworms when feeding. I put them in a small dish and the gecko eats them when ever they want. I feed them every other day as needed. All geckos eat different. Some are aggressive, they'll eat anything you drop in the tank but others eat small amounts as they get hungry. Some geckos eat much less than other reptiles especially in the winter some cut off food for awhile. Some gecko owners get alarmed when their gecko doesn't eat for awhile but truth of the matter is these lizards can go a long time with out eating. They get much of their nutrition from their fat tales as needed.

Home: Tank set up can be very simple. I use 10 gallon tanks for their homes. The best and easiest flooring I use is paper towel or newspaper. No its not super fancy but it looks ok and is very easy to replace to keep clean. Many owners use sand but this is dangerous for these lizards especially the younger ones. They can actually eat the sand and become impacted because their body can not digest it. Why take the chance. If you ask me a  real reptile owner that cares for their pets would prefer his lizards to be safe and doesn't care about looks so much. These geckos are actually very clean and will go to the bathroom in the same spot every day. So once you see where that is you can just put a napkin there and just replace it as needed. These geckos require a hide to go and rest. They are sensitive to light and they can actually get stressed if exposed to excessive light. Flooring, water bowl, food bowl and hide then you'll be good to go. Only other thing is of course heating. I use heat mats controlled by a thermostat. I have found this works best and they prefer to get belly heat instead of a basking light seeing they are nocturnal. You may want to put heat mat on only one side of tank so the gecko can thermo-regulate. If cold, they go on the heat mat. If they get hot, they go on the cool side. As far as grouping these lizards together, it works great. Females can all be grouped together. Males must be separated because they fight all the time even to the death. I currently own 4 females and 1 male. I keep all the females together in a 40 gallon breeder tank. I have hides, water, food, calcium dish and a big heating mat right in the middle of tank. This works out great for the geckos and makes my cleaning very easy. The male is by himself in another 10 gallon tank.

Breeding: This for me has been the best part of owning these reptiles. It has been a great experience for me and the family to breed these lizards. It is easy to do and you just have to make sure you have the space to deal with extra lizards. Some people don't realize that and before they know it they are over run with baby geckos. So make sure to have space or new owners lined up for babies once born. To start you obviously need a male and female. Female has to be at least 50-60 grams in weight to breed to make sure they can carry the eggs. One male can breed to up to 5 females. That is why I have so many females and only 1 male. You can either put the male with all the females to breed or put one female in with the male. The male will start dancing around to show he's a male and start biting the female in the tail or head. This is common breeding behavior. The male may get turned down but he will try again until the female submits and lets him breed. He will lock up with the female and do his business. Sometimes you will witness it and sometimes you won't. Best way is to just keep the male in with female for about a week. He will get the job done in that time. It is a good idea to take and separate the male and female after mating because the male will stress the female out and continue to try and breed. The male only needs to breed with a female once and she will have multiple eggs. They lay eggs in clutches. Two eggs at a time and she will continue to lay eggs about every 30 days. First time around, the female will lay about 2-3 clutches. The second or third time around they may lay much more up to 15 clutches in some cases. My gecko's laid 4 clutches the first time around. A lay box will need to be put in the cage. This can be simple, like peat moss sprayed with water to keep moist. They will lay the eggs in there when ready. You have to keep a eye on the cage because they will sometimes just lay the eggs anywhere. You must find them before they dry out. That's what the lay box is for, to keep the eggs moist until you get to them. Another fun part of breeding them is the morph making. You can basically create your own color by mix and matching the type that you breed.

Incubation: I have tried different methods for this until I found what works best. I made a homemade one first. I took a 10 gallon tank and filled it like a little over 1/4 of the way up with water. Then I took a aquarium heater and put it in the water and adjusted it to about 80 degrees. Then i put a container in the water with the eggs in smaller containers on the top of that one. I put tin foil on the top cover to keep humidity in. This worked a little and I hatched a few eggs but lost some because the extra humidity was causing mold and ruining the eggs. I switched to using a regular incubator. Its basically made from styrofoam and comes with a built in thermostat to keep temps steady. It has a little water on the bottom but not much. This worked great. No mold and hatched the eggs perfectly. As far as the container the eggs are in, I use regular deli cups. I fill them about half way with perlite and make 2 indents in it to lay the eggs in. I found perlite works best because it breaths better. At one point I used peat moss which is like dirt but that causes to much mold. Eggs incubate for about 30-60 days depending on temps. You can control the gender that hatches based on temperature. 75-84 degrees for female. 85-90 for mixed gender. 90-95 to hatch males.

Hatching care- These little guys are very simple to care for once they hatch. I use shoe box size plastic containers with a hide, food and water. You can put half of the container over some heat tape to keep a little warm. They don't like to be bothered at all. They are straight little demons when they're first born. They will hiss and jump at you for no reason because they are scared. It passes after a few weeks. I feed them the small baby meal worms and it works fine.

In conclusion I recommend this reptile for the first time reptile owner. They have been fun for me and the family to care and breed them. You will notice they have their own personalities. You will notice it more when you group them together. I have some that don't want to be bothered much. They just want to eat and sleep and don't want you holding them all the time. Others will walk up to the front of the tank and greet me because they know I have the food. All and all these geckos are a must have for any reptile lover.


Leopard Geckos by Jovanie Velazquez

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