Y’all, i need your experience here ajd some reassurances or guidance. Apologies in advance this is long.
I adopted bravo, male leopard gecko, from a friend of a friend. I was told it was he was a he, and that he was full grown.
At the time i wasn’t concerned with gender really, i just wanted to give him a good home. I dont generally pull bravo out because he HATES handling, stresses out and gets very huffy. I check on him weekly, make sure eating, pooing, etc. Get a visual. But generally speaking i just leave him be.
Went to check on him, since i was getting a weight and pics of lune. I thought he looked real chonky, and so i reached in to let him sniff me and do a more thorough well check… looked at tummy, thinking maybe he was impacted or something… FREAKING NO!!! no hemipene bulge, no pores (now that i know what im looking for, cuz of lune). Look closer and shes got freaking eggs in her! I can see em, i can feel em if i gently massage her belly.
Help me out here people. Im mildly freaking out, cuz i was not prepared for this, i know what to do for more humid species… but not arid species. Im assuming a humid laybox? Whats the propwr amount of moisture?
Ok, did some googling. I made her a laybox. Its not quite deep enough, about 3.5" but its what i have availabl3 immediately. Dampened spaghum moss, not too damp, and i kind of buried it on her warmer side so the lid is a bit more flush, and a hole in the lid.
You might just be looking at her fat pads. It’s normal for leos to have fat pads that are often misidentified as eggs, by myself especially, hehe. Nevertheless one should always have a humid hide for a leopard gecko, which is what females will choose as a lay box, and the one you made is fine. Un-bred females do occasionally lay ‘ slugs,’ unfertilized eggs that were not reabsorbed. Just keep it damp but not water-logged, keep an eye out for mold or evaporation. Leopard geckos live in underground burrows in the wild and those are more humid than the terrain above them.
It looks like you got a female. It could be an honest mistake because if a gecko is TSM (temperature sexed male) it only has a ~98% of being male. I think the humid hide looks good for now but in the future it would be better to have something that doesn’t have transparent sides.
Thanks so much for the help. Bravo is in a naturalistic enclosure, so i wejt ahead and kinda dug a little hole for the box to nestle in so its surrounded by substrate and kinda dark, aside from the opaque lid.
Agreeing on the fat pads. They can be surprising for people not familiar with how an average female Leo’s belly looks. Eggs will be quite a bit larger.
She’ll love the hide box regardless because it’ll be a cozy damp place. She may not do anything for a while. She may not lay at all. Sometimes a gecko will routinely lay slugs. Other times they may only pass one or two and then never again.
