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Home > Care > Breeding Day geckos
 
Breeding

Sexing
The good thing about day geckos is if you give them an adequate diet, suitable housing with enough hiding & egg laying spots and proper lighting and photo periods they will breed.
First you must be sure you have a pair by correctly sexing the animals.
You can distinguish a male by his well developed femoral pores. These look like scales with very defined "dots" within them, they are usually in a V shaped arrangement.

  

Above: By studying the vental areas of a pair of Phelsuma m.grandis you can clearly and easily see the differences between the two sexes.

Below: A closer look at the vent area of a male Phelsuma m.grandis.
 Photos courtesy of A.Hartig
 

These pores are not developed in females or are less developed. This is the best or perhaps the only good way to sex these animals. Often females have well developed endolymphatic chalk sacs on the sides of their neck for storing calcium. The calcium is used for the development of the eggshell. But sometimes males also have these sacs.
 
Cooling
 Before the breeding period, some breeders expose their animals to shorter daytimes (10-12 hours photoperiod) and lower temperatures (18C° - 20 °C). The cooling period should be carried out for 6 to 10 weeks during the winter for a period. During this period the day geckos will eat less, much like many animals do during hibernation. After the cooling period the temperatures, photoperiod and feeding should be gradually increased until back to normal.
 
Mating

A pair of Phelsuma m.grandis mating. © A.Hartig
Before introducing your animals to breed you must be sure they are in good health and show a healthy body weight. Your animals should be older then 1 year for the smaller species and older than 1.5 years for the larger species before breeding should even be considered.
I prefer to keep pairs together in an enclosure, rather than introducing one sex to the other. If you see that the animals are fighting, it is best to separate them. If disputes do occur, you will probably see bite marks and pieces of ripped skin on one or both of the animals.You will need to monitor the animals well after you have first introduced them to each other. It is possible that if you wait a few weeks and make a new well planted setup, they will no longer fight upon the next introduction. Or perhaps you have the possibility to switch males if you have more then one pair, but always keep a breeding pair together. I generally keep a pair together throughout the whole year.
Day geckos will breed actively during several months per year. The months really depends of the species. Most species will begin mating after the cooling period and will lay clutches of eggs every 3-6 weeks for several months. But there are also species that will lay almost throughout the whole year. My personal experience is that the peak in egg laying is in July, August and September.
During the mating the male will bite firmly in the nape of the neck of the female. It is possible that you will see bite marks left on the neck following the mating. After mating the eggs will usually fully develop within 1 month. With the smaller species these eggs are visible through the abdomen, you will see one or two white ovals.
 
Incubation
Day geckos will produce and lay clutches of 2 eggs (occassionally only 1) for several months. Most day geckos lay their eggs freely in a protected location, such as between the leaves of a plant or in a hollow bamboo. When the eggs are hardened, you can carefully remove them for artificial incubation. You need an area which is at a constant temperature between 26°C to 29°C. It is best to make or buy your own incubator. It’s also possible to use a tank.
There are also species that glue their eggs to the surface (enclosure walls, decor etc). These eggs cannot be removed. You must incubate the eggs in the exact spot they were laid. You can use a plastic container to put over the eggs, just make sure to make small air holes in it. This can then be sealed around the eggs (using tape).
 High incubation temperatures will give more male offspring and low temperatures will produce females.

Phelsuma ornata eggs adhered inside some bamboo.
 
Hatchling Phelsuma quadriocellata quadriocellata

Incubation setup
Eggs that are removed for incubation must be incubated in appropriate containers. This is the most frequently used method:
Take an empty container and make small holes in the lid. Put a layer of moistened vermiculite in the bottom of the container with a ratio of 2:1 (vermiculite:water) by weight. Put the eggs in a large plastic cap and lay it in the container. Eggs usually take 40-90 days to hatch, it depends upon the species and the temperatures.

Raising Babies
Whilst keeping day geckos, my experiences with them are that if the babies hatch inside the enclosure, the parents will often attack them leading to damage or even death. It is best not to take this risk. However there are some species in which juveniles can be kept with their parents such as klemmeri and standingi.

Hatchlings and juveniles can be kept in small tanks. You keep them in the

same way as the parents, but on a smaller scale. Feed them on insects - fruit flies and pinhead size crickets, and mixtures of fruit baby food (See Feeding section for more information)

It is best not to use water bowls as babies can often drown in them, it is much better to mist the enclosure daily, in which the geckos will lap up the droplets of water.

At this age it isn’t possible to accurately sex these animals. For a much more accurate results it is best to wait 5-6 months to sex them. When you breed day geckos it gives you the opportunity to trade animals with other breeders. This way you can trade for new bloodlines for breeding with your own (to prevent inbreeding) or other Phelsuma species.