Hello, I’ve loved AFTs for a long time and have finally decided to give breeding a shot.
I deeply care for my AFT (and future AFTs) and don’t want to mess anything up.
Are they any breeders on here that offer consultations?
I’d love to connect with you.
Finding a mentor can definitely be hard! @hellfire_exotics do you know any AFT breeders that like to help out with the community?
I got my AFT from JMG reptile, but I imagine Jeff is probably quite busy, as he’s a larger breeder of multiple species.
While you’re still looking to make a connection, you can always do lots of online research, from many different sources, then compare and contrast it all to settle on the way you’re going to approach things.
I would definitely suggest looking into these specific topics if you are looking to take on breeding fat tails. They are somewhat similar to leopard geckos and you can find plenty of info on that. (Like it more humid, but hatch rates and perfect healthy offspring aren’t as common in fat tails so be ready for some possible bad luck , it happens).
Fatal combinations / combinations or lines with issues (certain whiteout lines) / genes that don’t produce or lay fertile eggs (caramel females / ghost females).
Incubation methods / temperatures (I do 81.5 F for female , 88 F for male)
How to spot an ovulation.
You don’t randomly want to add the male in, you will know when a female is pushing him away she will make a very very faint clicking noise once he tries to breed her , to me this noise means “back off I am not ready yet” a female hissing back at the male is not what I’m talking about this click is very faint it sounds like something you would not think a fat tail can make. It’s faint and somewhat fast sounding. The male will make a noise as well but all males will breed most likely. This odd “click” noise will come from the female.
Spotting an ovulation takes time especially if you use a deli-cup to view the belly rather than hold the gecko to check. Thankfully most gecko ovulations look the same so you can check leopard gecko ovulation videos online for that info.
Hatchlings will be a bit stubborn and some will be easy peasy, then there are the very few who just don’t care to eat at all. You will want crickets on hand just in case those work almost all the time, I feed mainly mealworms and I have 1 or 2 babies each year refuse them even going into sub adult hood but they eventually switch for me. I also get them eating out a mini food dish as quick as I can to be most efficient and pet friendly as possible. Sometimes mealworm guts on the lips until they lick it does the trick then they will get a few licks and then bite the worm (you need to hold the worm and it’s guts on the geckos lips until it wants to bite it)
I’ve only had a tail drop happen once in over 13 years of keeping reptiles, but it does happen. I’ve also had a gecko or two actually eat the paper towel as well I’m not sure if they missed a worm and got paper or accidentally ate it thinking it was shed.
Females can sometimes lay just one egg, you will want to check if she’s holding on to the other but sometimes they will only produce one egg, sometimes they will even deposit a bad egg first then lay the good egg a few days later. But this info can also be somewhat found online in regards to leopard geckos, same rules would apply here as well with fat tails when it comes to egg bound or holding issues.
I would 1000000% stay away from any kinds of moss, stick to coco fiber for an egg laying box / humid hide. They eat the shed and anything attached to said shed.
Other than these few tips I can think of I would suggest joining a few fat tail groups and reading and just gathering knowledge and seeing what issues people have had and what successes they have had as well. There’s some great discussions about genes and how they work when things were in the infancy of fat tails and how we got to where we are now. I wish we had a place to discuss all that stuff as it’s all jumbled onto a few social media groups to maybe be lost in time rather than be truly saved on a place like here. But the info can still be dug up.
Hope this helps!