Breeding your leopard geckos might be very exciting and interesting. But before you start breeding your leopard geckos, you need to learn about different aspects of breeding. In this post, we will talk all about breeding leopard geckos, and will discuss conditioning, mating, creating a nest site/an egg laying box and incubating the eggs. We will also discuss introduction of geckos to each other, incubation temperatures, their effects and answer many other questions!
When can you start breeding leopard geckos? What is the best age to start breeding leopard geckos and how to tell they are sexually mature?
You must not breed your leopard geckos until they reach minimum 10-12 months old. The most important factor and metric to look at when wanting to breed leopard geckos is the weight. Your leopard geckos should be at least 35-40 grams until you start breeding them. Some leopard geckos will grow faster than others, and some can even reach 35-40 grams in 6 months!
An even though males will reach sexual maturity sooner, at around 5-6 months old, you should wait for him to be of similar size as the female before breeding them. Females become sexually mature and start ovulating at 10-12 months old.
Before breeding, make sure the male has developed hemipenal bulges and pores (read about identifying leopard gecko’s gender here). Don’t pressure your leopard gecko to breed early as some might be only ready at 12-18 months old. Much will depend of feeding and terrarium setups such as heating and light.
Is my leopard gecko too old for breeding?
Your male leopard gecko can breed until it turns 8 years or more, and it will depend on its health. But with female leopard geckos, it is often much less because making and laying eggs causes lots of stress to her body.
A female leopard gecko should ideally not breed after turning 6 years old. While she can produce some eggs at the age of 7-8, there will be only few clutches and it will be a big burden for her.
Perfect age gap for breeding leopard geckos is 1-4 years old, but it can extend to up to 6-7 for males.
How many leopard geckos do I need for breeding? Other breeding requirements.
You will need at least one male and one female for breeding, but you can have 5 or more females per one male.
If housing more leopard geckos, you will need a bigger tank that will have hides and basking spots for each gecko. Make sure everyone is eating well and not fighting.
It is a good idea to keep male and female(s) separately, and introduce them to each other straight after winter months. Please note that not all females or males are good at mating, and sometimes a male or female gecko might not succeed at copulation.
Also make sure that leopard geckos are healthy – not infected with any parasitic infections or suffering from deficiencies. Leopard gecko’s tail, especially female’s, should be plump as she will need to use stored fat.
Gravid leopard gecko will often go off food at later stages of pregnancy, so she needs to be of optimal weight. Provide both male and a female with calcium rich food – especially female will need minerals and vitamins for egg production.
If you are bringing any new leopard geckos into the tank, quarantine them first and have fecal examinations done at the vet.
When is leopard geckos’ breeding season?
Leopard geckos breed throughout the year, excluding winter when temperatures are low and days become shorter. Breeding season is often from February to October.
Factors affecting breeding – temperature and light
As we have discussed, leopard geckos stop breeding when temperatures drop low in winter and the days become shorter. You can manipulate temperatures and photoperiod slightly before a breeding season starts to encourage breeding.
Start dropping temperatures to around 75 F during the day (70 in the cool side) and 65 degrees F at night for a month or two before returning temperatures to normal.
Also, reducing amount of light to 9-10 hours a day and increasing to 14-15 of darkness will affect the breeding when your return back to 12:12 hours of light:darkness.
Transition to winter hours and temperatures gradually, so that your leopard gecko understands it is winter and can prepare for it. This is how they start brumation. Your leopard gecko will be slow, sleep a lot and not eat much if anything (but provide water).
If you know that you will breed your leopard geckos, start conditioning as early as December and return to normal temperatures and light in mid-late January.
How does mating happen?
As we have discussed, it is the best idea to separate a male from a female and introduce her to him after the winter shutdown. A male and female should mate shortly after an introduction.
Introduce them to each other 3-5 times (on separate days) and let them mate. After a male and female mated few times, you can separate them again because female leopard geckos can store sperm for many months to come. This will minimize any chances of a male attacking the female or causing any stress.
Just before mating, a male will start dancing around the female and will be slightly biting on her nape or neck. Female will be calm – he will then lay on top of her and sometimes bite on her nape to prevent running off or biting. She will lift her tail slightly and he will then insert his hemipene in her cloaca.
Mating will last few minutes and then he will lick his hemipenes so they retract, but it can take few hours. If it doesn’t retract, make him a sugar bath (water + sugar) few times a day.
Gravid (pregnant) leopard gecko diet
As the gravid leopard gecko will be forming eggs during the period of 8-9 months, you need to provide her with a high quality diet. Her diet must be rich in calcium and you must gut-load all insects (or buy gut-loaded insects) and dust them with calcium supplement daily (and every other day with calcium + vitamin D3) when she becomes gravid.
Offer multivitamins once a week. She will use her fat resources stored in the tail to make egg yolks and calcium to make egg shells. Of course, other multivitamins are also important for an egg production.
Also, provide a dish with pure calcium source (cuttlebone) and keep it in the vivarium at all times. Feed her pinky mice once a week or two to replenish the storage of nutrients.
How many clutches and eggs do leopard geckos produce?
This leopard gecko is gravid (pregnant)
Young leopard geckos will produce more clutches in a year than older geckos. A female leopard gecko that is between 2-5 years old will produce 1 or 2 eggs every 20 to 40 days over the period of 4-6 months.
This will result in around 4-10 clutches, or 10-15 eggs per season. That will be around 1-2 eggs per half a month to full month. But some females will only lay 2-3 clutches per year.
How long will it take for a gravid leopard gecko to lay the eggs?
If mating has been successful and she became gravid, it will take her around 20-25 days to lay the eggs. At the late stage of pregnancy, you will be able to see her belly puff up and bulge from sides.
Don’t apply pressure on her belly as you can rupture the eggs. Instead, look at her belly in the bright light and you will be able to see one or two round eggs. Start preparing an egg-laying site/nesting site 10 days after mating, so she can explore the spot and choose it for laying eggs.
What is an egg-laying site and how to prepare it?
After successful mating of leopard geckos you need to start thinking about creating arrangements for egg laying. A gravid female will need an egg-laying site or nesting site, where she will go and lay the eggs.
An egg-laying site should be rather small and be confined so she can comfortably lay eggs and know that they are not visible to everyone (possible predators). Please note that the leopard gecko might not choose the egg-laying spot that you create as a nesting site if something is not suitable.
To create a nesting site, choose a plastic container with a top lid, around 4-5 inches deep. Make a hole in a lid wide enough for her to enter the nesting site. Fill this nesting site to 50% depth with substrate that retains moisture, such as sphagnum moss or vermiculite (can be a mix of both).
Make the substrate damp but not soggy, and to prevent it from drying, spray some water from time to time. Dry substrate will cause drying of the eggs – an embryo needs moisture from surroundings to grow.
But don’t make substrate too wet, because it will promote fungal growth. The temperature inside the laying box should be around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26.6 degrees), so make sure to keep the lid to retain the humidity.
She will lay the eggs 20-25 days after copulation, usually in evening. Shortly before laying eggs, she will be actively digging and searching for a nesting site. Note that she can also choose another site to lay the eggs – keep an eye on her.
Change the substrate in the nesting site after she has laid eggs, as she will need fresh medium for next laying. If there is no loose substrate or nesting box, she might become egg-bound.
What should you do after leopard gecko has laid the eggs? Egg incubation.
After leopard gecko has laid one or two eggs, you need to collect them and place in the incubator. Place them horizontally, and never move them afterwards as this can kill the embryo inside an egg. And don’t cover eggs – leave them half buried in the medium.
Incubation medium
In both commercial incubator and DIY egg incubator you will need to keep the eggs in the incubation medium. This incubation medium should be 50% perlite and 50% vermiculite. Mix the medium with water until it becomes damp but not soggy.
Buying an incubator
You can buy a digital incubator called ReptiBator by Zoo Med, which features a container with lots of space to put the eggs, heating and humidity controls and an under-tank heating element. You will be able to place the eggs in the incubator and set the temperatures and humidity levels with press of buttons.
After setting up the temperatures and calibrating the incubator, check these settings regularly with a thermometer and humidity gauge that has a probe. Place the probe inside the incubator and take readings once or twice a day to confirm the temperature & humidity are optimal.
Making a DIY incubator
But if you don’t want to buy an incubator, you can make one of your own. To make your own DIY incubator for gecko’s eggs, choose a large plastic storage box that is around 4 inches deep and fill to 50% with damp vermiculite + perlite. For heating, use an under tank heater like this under the incubator or place heating bulbs on top of the incubator. Connect the bulbs and/or heating pad to a thermostat to make sure temperatures are correct.
Get a humidity gauge and a thermometer with a probe to have accurate temp + humidity readings. Place a lid on the incubator to prevent the moisture from evaporating – but sometimes open the lid for ventilation or make small holes in it.
You can also place a container with eggs in the water and heat it with a submersible aquarium water heater.
This incubator is placed in a large box with a submersible water heater
What are optimal temperatures and humidity for incubating leopard gecko’s eggs? Temperature-dependent sex determination.
Correct temperature and humidity is crucial for embryo survival. The humidity should be 85-95%, and you can spray some water on the container and the medium if it drops low (but not on eggs). 
Speaking of incubation temperatures: leopard gecko’s gender will be dependent on incubation temperature. Temperature will determine the gecko’s gender after 10 days of incubation.
Incubating eggs at 79 degrees F (26.1 Celsius) will produce only females and at 86-87 degrees F (30-30.5 degrees Celsius) will produce 65-70% females. If you incubate eggs at 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32.5 Celsius), you will produce 65-70% males, and 93 degrees F (33.8 Celsius) will produce only males.
Don’t incubate eggs at the temperature below 75 degrees F (23.8 Celsius), over 93 degrees F or below 80% humidity, or embryos will not survive.
It has also been thought that females that are incubated at higher temperatures (such as 87-88 instead of 79) are more aggressive, reach sexual maturity sooner and posses male traits.
These leopard geckos are called ‘hot females‘. Hot females don’t develop preanal pores like those in males. But this is only a hypothesis and it has not been proved that ‘hot females’ are actually aggressive due to high incubation temperatures.
How long will leopard gecko’s eggs take to hatch?
Leopard gecko eggs will incubate for around 35-100 days before hatching. This will depend on incubation temperature, and higher the temperature = faster the eggs will hatch.
How to tell if leopard gecko’s eggs are fertile or infertile?
These are hatchling leopard geckos
Fertile eggs will differ in looks from infertile eggs. After laying, fertile eggs will become bigger, but infertile ones will remain small and shrink. Another way to see if an egg is fertile is to place a bright light behind an egg (called candling the eggs).
In bright light, fertile egg will look black inside (there is an embryo growing which will have a shadow) and you will see red blood vessels. If an egg is infertile, it will look yellow, might have green spots and will look empty. But start checking only 10 days after laying.
If you are not sure if an egg is fertile, keep it for a week or two. When handling, be careful as you can easily kill an embryo inside an egg – hold an egg in the same position as it is laying and don’t rotate it. If you are sure an egg is infertile – throw it away as it can cause mold formation.
Leopard gecko egg hatching
When the eggs are ready to hatch, they will deflate and can look dented. This means that the egg will soon hatch. The shell will become thinner before hatching. A hatchling inside an egg will slit the surface of an egg and take few hours before coming out.
You should not disturb this hatching process – poking an egg can result in damage of egg’s blood vessels and yolk sac. If you are sure that hatchling can’t get out – make a slight slit on top of an egg.
Caring for hatchling leopard geckos
Once leopard geckos hatch, you need to place them in separate containers. This is because some hatchlings that are bigger can bully smaller geckos, stressing them and not letting them eat and grow.
Hatchlings will not eat for 3-6 days, and will be feeding on egg yolk supplies. But after that, they will become very active and will eat a lot.
Start feeding your leopard geckos 1/4 inch crickets – the insect should not be bigger than the width between gecko’s eyes. And, keep them on paper towel substrate – never use loose substrate until leopard geckos turn at least 5-6 months old.
If you are housing two hatchlings together, make sure they are both eating and drinking and have enough space to hide and bask. If they become aggressive towards each other, separate them.
Never place hatchling leopard geckos with older hatchlings or adults as they will be bitten and can be even killed and eaten.
Make sure to provide hatchlings with water in a shallow dish and lots of hides. Hatchling leopard geckos are very likely to be scared of you and might even scream or hiss at you!
Don’t handle hatchlings, but approach the tank or container so they get used to you. They will spend most of the time hiding for the first few weeks.
If you want to learn more about feeding hatchling leopard geckos, check this post on leopard gecko diet.