Leopard Gecko Cohab Questions

I am considering housing a pair of female leos together. The tank is a 24 × 18 × 12 exo terra terrarium. I have never attempted to cohabitate any reptile. The Google tells me it can be done, but I wanted to ask the pros that hang out on here for any input. They are both under a year old. In good health. Roughly the same size… If you need to know anything else about either leo please let me know. Thanks guys.

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A lot of people do it, but I don’t ever recommend it. Leopard geckos aren’t social and don’t benefit from being housed with others. I’ve kept leos for around 20 years, and every single time I’ve tried cohabbing, there has eventually been a problem, sometimes a big one.

Whenever I’ve cohabbed leos, they’ve both ended up with scratches and scars, and the larger one(s) clearly dominated the resources (hiding spaces, food, etc.). I’ve had it happen twice that a pair of long-term female roommates ended up having a fight & someone lost a tail. I’ve also had a gecko lose a tail when trying to introduce two females. And once, I had one (confirmed) female bite down so hard on the head of another (confirmed) female, when I was trying to introduce them, that it went down to the bone.

If you are determined, make sure the enclosure is clean of all traces of smell from either of them, then introduce them both at exactly the same time. Be 100% sure that they are both female, as two males will result in at least one dead gecko. I also recommend keeping them both well-fed, and feeding them outside the enclosure, separately. Make sure that there are 2 dry hides on the warm side, 2 dry hides on the cool side, and 2 humid hides (either middle or slightly warm end).

Many breeders and keepers do none of these things, and their geckos are fine. This is just my personal opinion.

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@mblaney I’ve communicated with you a lot on a number of my post so I value your personal opinion. Thank you for the input. I will think about it all. Have to get a back up enclosure in case things go poorly.

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If that tank volume calculator I use is correct that tank is ~20gal which is the bare minimum a single leo can go in. Even if they are both females, they will definitely fight in a tank that small. I really don’t recommend cohabbing leos at all, you’d need a much larger tank in order to provide both with their own space (a 4’x2’ tank could possibly be used, but still). And honestly I’d rather just have 2 smaller tanks with the leos separate. Depending on where you’re getting 2 20gal, it’s definitely cheaper plus no vet bills from fighting geckos. They’re a solitary species with a strong bite, I’d only put 2 leos together for breeding purposes and even then that’s only temporary

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We talked it over and its not worth the risk to the animal. We will not be cohabbing. Thank you both for the input. We appreciate it a bunch.

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When I first got into leopard geckos around 2003, I did do some co-habbing. I only saw in 1 tank some bulling and I separated those geckos. But I also had a pair housed together for 10 years and never had an issue with them. So you never know. Now I house all of them separated. Why risk it.

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With that exo terra, I would put in P. pictus aka panther geckos, viper geckos or if you can find them steppe runners. You can house 2 or 3 of them together in it.

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As @mblaney has said I do not recommend cohabitation. I do not have even similar experience and knowledge of @mblaney but I would only cohabitat them if they had like a 10’ x 10’ x 2’ enclosure which I don’t think anyone will really do.

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