How do you guys pick the ones you want to hold back?




I have five baby crested geckos I produced last year one I know for a fact I want to hold back, but the others I am not sure. I no longer have the parents (sold the male and the female passed away). Part of me wants to hold back all of them, but then that is a lot of related genetics in my potential breeding pool.

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Holding back wise, I usually go for what I plan to do in the future, so for instance I know I’d like to hold an extreme female back for one of my male this year and a red or 2 for another and a phantom… Also I go by the structure as I don’t want to be producing Cresties with small heads!
I also hold back longer any that are ‘strange’ in colouration or pattern (like my golden nugget I’ve kept back, on a previous thread of mine).
All reds will be held back longer here as they can change a lot. Lillies also will be held, and any from my yellow will be held back as take longer to develop.
Also I have a lot of males, so any males won’t be staying I know for sure as no room for more right now…

It’s hard I know, I get attached very easily to them all (and I have a lot right now)… But I love them all so it’s hard to pick who stays! :sweat_smile:

If you’re breeding, which I assume you are, you really don’t want to have a lot related, keep 1 or 2 back, and get new lines. Since you can’t put back to eachother (well you can, but I don’t agree with it personally). Maybe keep the fav (I’m assuming the tricolour?) and then go from there on what you want to do…

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Thanks for responding. I definitely am holding back the tricolor, the others are a toss up so I was planning on letting them grow a bit before I choose the ones I want to stay.

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I agree that holding onto them for a while is best as they can change so much!

I haven’t bred yet (next year) but I’ve bought so many babies and now I’m over run with males, I know I will have to get rid of some eventually, but right now I’ve got room so I’m keeping them as long as I can.

I’m going to be keeping back as many Lilly Whites as possible and any with traits I specifically want to progress with like Snowflake, drippy and white tip.

I also have goals to work towards so the idea is to keep Cresties that will help me reach that goal - red super soft Lilly White.

But I fear my plans will be hard to stick to when I see the lil ones hatch :sweat_smile:

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If you hold them all back, then you don’t have to choose :rofl: that’s my motto anyways. By the time you’ve decided, they’re likely going to be worth more as they’ll be that much closer to breeding weight.

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I stare deeply into the eyes of the creature. One blink followed by an eye lick. Its a holdback

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