Our Experience's

I am not an expert by any means on reptiles or even Fat Tailed Geckos, but since June, 1998, my husband and I have had a lot of experience with these interesting creatures. In this story of how we started is information on dealing with a sick fat-tail.

Late May, 1998, my 2 sons came to live with me and my husband for the summer. His son was coming out a few weeks later. The boys were 10 and 8 at the time, and they love reptiles. We went to the local pet store and ended up over in the reptile section. A very helpful employee came over to help us. Well, in my opinion, we were just "looking" at the ugly, gross, slimy reptiles. After a while of looking and discussion, my husband and I agreed to allow the boys to get a $3.49 house gecko as long as they earned the money to pay for it. With the help of the store clerk, in a matter of 15 minutes, she had the boys begging for a fat-tailed gecko. Even I at this point, had dared to hold one of those "things". We agreed to pay for the housing, as long as the boys could earn the $49.95 for the fat-tailed gecko.

Within a week, the boys had earned the money by doing various odd jobs and recycling pop cans. We loaded up the car and headed back to the pet store. $200.00 later, we were headed back home with our new pet. (There are cheaper ways to get your first set up, e-mail me at carrie@roqufort.com for more info.)   We set everything up and that was the start of our new hobby.

After a couple of weeks, we had learned how easy it would be to breed the fat-tails. We contacted the pet store to find out if anyone could tell us what sex our gecko was, and how we could get another of the opposite sex. We had a female, and the manager had a male brought in for us. My husband and I paid for the male as now, this was partially our venture also. We wanted babies.

The male we got looked like a male, He even had a large chin. With in 2 weeks, we realized that the chin he had was an infection. We took him to the vet after putting betadine on the infection for 2 weeks and not getting any results. Also, he wasn't eating at all. The vet told us that he had most likely gotten into a fight and had a broken jaw/lip and didn't really have much hope for his recovery. She gave us some antibiotics, that we gave to him by mouth for 14 days. We also continued putting betadine and hydrogen peroxide on the lip. After about a month, the lip was healed with the exception that he had a large over bite now. But he still wasn't eating. He was showing no interest in the crickets at all. We even tried meal worms and pinky mice, he was just not interested. Now, two months after we bough him, he was very thin, and not very healthy looking. I had started feeding him turkey baby food, (with calcium mixed in) and water with an eye dropper just to keep him alive. But that wasn't enough.

We had contacted the pet store about the problem we were having with the male fat-tail, and they gave us an extra 30 days on the guarantee of health since we were going to try to save him. After the second 30 days were up, our male still wasn't well. One of the managers offered to give us our money back, and would still allow us to keep the sick gecko, as he had become a part of our family and we did not want to see him die. With the refund, we bough a third fat-tail, another female. Now we had 2 females that were healthy, and a male that wasn't eating.

Another manager there, (that breeds all types of geckos from his home), suggested Stimulap for our male, to get him to eat. We tried it, after a week, he was eating. Within 3 weeks, he alone was eating 8 to 10 crickets each night, and gaining weight.  We did it! We had saved our male fat-tail.

Sticky, our first female, was named for the way the small claws on her toes would allow her to "stick" to clothing (like Velcro).
Gex, our male, was named for what he is, a gecko
Berger, our second female, was named for my husbands fat hamburgers. As her tail had been lost and the fat, stubby re-grown tail was very fat.

{Berger on top, Gex in the middle, Sticky bottom}

We have always housed all 3 in the same tank, a 20 gallon long. In late November, we found the first clutch of eggs. The terrarium moss in the "sweat box" had been pulled around and "fluffed" up. I saw this when I turned on the lamp in the morning. Our incubator had been set up and ready for eggs for a few weeks. I carefully removed the eggs from the sweat box, and placed them, half buried, in the one pint, deli containers filled with damp vermiculate. I wrote the date I found them on the top of the lid, and placed the container in the incubator. About every 3 weeks, I found a new clutch of eggs. A few times, I found only 1 egg. I treated it the same as the normal clutches. After about 45 days, I was getting concerned that the eggs weren't hatching. I moved the thermometer around and found out that the temperature was about 78° F. That was too low. I turned up the temperature and moved the thermostat to a better spot in the incubator (in the front, and lower to the bottom). The first clutch didn't make it, but we had about 4 other clutches at that time.

We waited and waited, watching some eggs not making it, and most of them just sitting, getting ready to hopefully hatch. March 13th, I woke up, and looked into the incubator, and I saw a baby! Since we had the small tank all ready for the babies when they hatched, all I had to do was wet down the moss in the sweat box and add some water in the dish. I tried to pick the baby up, but he was fast and I didn't want to drop him, so I put the container that he was in and tilted it up, close to the floor, in the baby tank. He ran out, and started looking around his new home. The next morning, the second egg in the clutch had hatched. I put that baby in to the tank also. now, we have 2 baby geckos.

I started feeding them the day after I noticed they shed (about 3 days after hatching). They are eating great. We have even seen them "hunting" the crickets like the adult fat-tails. We feed them 3 small crickets each. Actually putting all 6 in the tank, and making sure both are eating.

I was told that once the babies hatch, as long as you care for them, they will live the 15 to 20 year lifespan. That there is nothing we can do to kill them, besides not caring for them of course!

May, 1999
We had one egg from a clutch hatch this month, the other egg did not make it. a week after the baby hatched, it died. we're not sure what happened, but we are thinking that since the other egg in that clutch didn't hatch, that he was underdeveloped, we were concerned with him when he was first born as he was not as active as the others when they were born.

Right now, we have 3 babies, we think all females. But time will tell. We recently got a full size female form someone in town that no longer had the time to give her the attention she needs. The new addition is named Gomez Gecko. She was thought to be a male, but we checked, and she is a girl. She is a striped fat tail and has beautiful coloring. We will have a picture of her up soon.

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This page created and maintained by Carrie Moebus.
Comments and questions regarding this web page, please send to Carrie@roqufort.com
Created on 3/20/1999
Updated on Thursday, September 28, 2000
© 1999-2000  Carrie Moebus. All rights reserved.