I am interested in becoming a better and bigger crested gecko breeder in the future. Right now i have 3 adult crested geckos and one nearly adult. Any information or tips from more experienced breeders that could be good to know?
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Get a hang of the genetics - When i first started preparing to breed there was barely any info about it, and most people subscribed to the idea that their genes were almost completely random and impossible to track. Within the past few years so many amazing resources have come out, so use them! Get at least a basic understanding of what you’re actually breeding.
Quality over quantity, pick out a project or two and focus on those. Also, good structure matters, but isn’t necessarily everything.
Track lineage and genetics, that way you can avoid inbreeding, and you can get a better idea of what your gecko is actually capable of producing.
The female only needs to be bred once for her to be producing eggs the whole season. Personally i pair mine in a neutral environment once in Jan-Feb, and then once again a couple of months later just to be safe. I personally don’t see any reason to keep them together year round, but some people do with little to no problems.
An obese 50g gecko is not necessarily a better breeder than a smaller one. Im obviously not telling people to breed their geckos too early, but some people are way too obsessed with weight, overfeeding them to the point of obesity just to get them to the “correct” weight when imo it has more to do with their overall condition.
There’s lots of awesome people in the community, but there’s also a lot of people who suck, and get mad cause you stray just a bit from the status quo. Ive seen people belittle others simply for wanting to breed a gecko that they didn’t agree was good enough “quality” cause it had a few spots, or a lesser nice structure. Listen to people’s criticism but don’t necessarily change your ways just cause some people disagree. Whether you use perlite or vermiculite to incubate, whether you keep them in tubs or tanks, whether you move the male to the female, vice versa, or neither is all up to you, be critical and do your own thorough research, and figure out ways that work well for you and your animals 
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As far as the genetics, it think i have a pretty good idea of how they work, i have always been super interested in biology and genes and that stuff and its what i am currently studying in school.
How important is lineage? 3 out of 4 of the geckos i have currently don’t have any lineage but i know where they are from. I live in sweden and there aren’t that many crested gecko breeders here, so i am looking to maybe import geckos with nice linage in the future.
I didn’t know that crested geckos only needed to be bred once to produce the whole season, i will definitely keep that in mind.
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I do want to breed dark geckos like charcoals in the future though, so currently im just watching which dark gecko breeders exist in Europe.
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Oh hi im Danish! I know of a few scandinavian breeders and there is a FB group for scandinavian breeders if you’re interested.
Lineage isn’t that important, but it’s important to track to avoid inbreeding down the line, and to get an idea of where they got the traits from imo. But as long as you can relatively safely say that they’re not directly related you’re good, you just kind of have to start from scratch when it comes to traits. Also, since Scandinavia only really has one fairly large breeder afaik, a lot of people have geckos with lineage from there and i’ve found that to be a bit of a problem sometimes, since i’ve often inquired about geckos just to find out that they had the same grandpa as the one i was planning on pairing them with lol
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I would be interested in that facebook group. I don’t really use facebook but i guess i could create an account.
Who is that large breeder? I have one crestie from snowblair cresties. A lily white young female i was planning to breed in the future.
I will have to inquire about the geckos i buy in the future then if many of the nordic geckos are related. It might even be better if i import from elsewhere in Europe instead.
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North Reptiles - amazing breeders, but especially the babies from their male Major are super popular. Most breeders in DK have at least a few geckos from them, myself included cause they’re amazing. I don’t think you have to worry tbh, but it’s worth keeping in mind. The group is called Gecko Scandinavia btw
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I was also wondering, are most crestie breeders registered businesses or not?
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Can’t help with the business side of things as I’m super small so just a hobby…
Lineage is important if you wish to sell to breeders, without it… The value will likely decrease. However non breeders really won’t care about that. Same goes for head structure, the bigger the better, but not for everyone.
Yes, once there has been a confirmed lock, you can separate them. I leave mine together for about 4 days. Females can retain sperm for about 3 years, sometimes more sometimes less so be prepared to have lots of eggs 
I recommend starting small, maybe 1 breeding pair for first year and work your way up.
With regards to lineage, you can pair a Gecko without lineage to a Gecko with lineage.
Get everything you need, before you start breeding as it can be expensive and better to be prepared. Cresties are easy to breed
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I currently have a breeding pair that have been together for 2 years now. But because i didn’t know much about the genetics and preferred head-structure before, i can see know that they aren’t the best pairing. I will therefore separate them.
This is my first breeding pair:
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The other two cresties i have has much better head structure
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I would suggest keeping separate anyway. Keeping them together all year round can be very stressful for the females
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I also got to know about not keeping female and males together for a longer time now. The Swedish reptile forums doesn’t write about that.
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The male isn’t terrible imo, his head isn’t super wide but the crests are fairly long which is nice. He could probably make some nice babies with a wider-structured red empty back female if that’s anything you’re into.
At least here in DK most breeders are not registered, most simply aren’t big enough for it to be considered more than a hobby.
And i agree with Fox, even if they’ve done just fine together for years things can change over night. It might not, but i don’t think it’s worth the risk. Though the female does look healthy enough.
I literally only keep mine together for 5 minutes or so at a time, that’s all they need.
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I was also thinking that the male was good to keep, but the female has such tiny crests. Their babies have always gotten the same crests as the male though.
But i will separate them and reconsider what traits are best to keep breeding. I was thinking about pairing the male with a red female. He has a pinkish chin which i read means he carries the gene for read base. Is that true?
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He looks like a visual red to me - The red base really varies a lot from muddy red to bright neon red to pink depending on the variant and what other genes are at play. Compared to the female which is obviously a dark-based he’s very clearly much more reddish.
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He doesn’t look like a red base to me, but a fired up pic would help!
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That picture is fired up, he doesn’t get much brighter or darker than that.
But he does have blushing under his shin, so i was thinking he was orange base and carrying the red base gene because of the blushing.
He’s definitely not a yellow-based, which is what oranges are at their core. Yellow + either red (hzg in my experience) or tangerine. Check out LMReptiles’ breeders if you want to see a good range of examples of reds. Especially their female Erza has a similar base to yours imo (here’s a link to her Gallery-Crested-F » LIL MONSTERS Reptiles)
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I do not see red at all, I’d say orange base. Not tangerine as not bright enough.
But colours vary on different devices.
Maybe @ghoulishcresties might be able to help