436. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 2 #12)

So its the end of January 2013 and the pair below bring us to the end of the second round of pairingas made. From tomorrow our brave boys will be embarking on round 3. In the piccy below our pair put together today (31/01/2013) are a couple of albino African fatsos. The bigger one is Nelson who has been with us for quite a few years now. His current girlfriend in this picture is Polokwane who if our memory is correct will be 3 years old in a couple of months. Named Polokwane after one of the township venues used at the Coupe de Monde 2010 in South Africa.

435. Egg weather forecast for the week

Good news we got 4 more eggs yesterday (29/01/2013) bringing our seasonal tally up to 6. The eggs we collected yesterday looked in good conditon and were set firm. For the rest of the week we have have 2 more girls on the point of lay with eggs clearly visible. They are also showing other symptons of immenent egg lay which includes: 1. irritable, uncomfortable and out of their hide during daylight. 2. regular visits to the lay box and repositioning of lay box material including kick material out of the box. 3. Clawing and rubbing at paper substrate underneath their hides. All good signs that eggs are nigh.

434. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 2 # 11).

Just put these two Macularius Macularuius wild caught bloodline couple together this afternoon (27/01/2013). The big bruiser is Mohammad who came to us from Steve Sykes wild caught group at Herpetoculture. He has been with us for 4 years now and is still as fit as a fiddle. The smaller female is Pakora who is one of our own produced offspring from 2011. She was actually sired by Mohammad so we got a bit of incest going on. Having said that must remember reptiles ain't to fussed that way. Also this pairing enables to produce, with confidence, guaranteed wild caught bloodlines that are uncontaminated with the albino or other captive bred morphs.

433. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 2 #10).

We are just over a month into our official breeding season and have to date paired up, we think, about 21 Leos so far. The pair below were put into each others company within the last 30 minutes (24/01/2013). The biggest is Jungle rock a solid red eyed Tremper stripe. The smaller is of the same ilk but without a stripe. He goes by the name of Smash. He is het for Diablo Blanco which we also think is true of Jungle rock. Would be fantastic if we could get the odd Diablo Blanco from these two.

432. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 2 # 9)

Here is another couple we have put into a union today (23/01/2013). Smaller one is Bell-end a Bell enigma. This time round we have put him with Meriva a chunky wild type. Given that both these two morphs are essentially dominant we should statistically speaking get 50%enigmas and 50% wild types if they breed succesfully.

431. We got dud eggs.

Sadly we have concluded that our first eggs of the season which were dropped yesterday are dud as they are still soft and don't look too good. These were from Goldust who is a first time breeder. So, maybe there is something in what you regularly hear from breeders which normally is along the line that first eggs are usually infertile. Must add that that does not apply in all cases as in the past we have had quite a few first time breeders whose first clutches have been fertile.

430. We got eggs,

Yes Siry we got eggs today (22/01/2013) which is the good news, negative part is that they look a little squashed. Anyway they are know in the incubator and lets hope we will be lucky and they puff up a bit. Must be that January 22nd is our lucky day as we also got our first eggs last year on the same day. Think it might have been helped by the frosty weather easing today and convincing Goldust warmer times are ahead. Goldust the egg producer and her mate are shown in post 409.

429. We're ready for eggs!

Indeed, eggs are prominent in the bellies of some of our girlies. Hence we have set up some incubator eggs boxes in anticipation. One change for this year is that we are using bottled water rather than the usual stuff from the tap. We are testing out to see if it might help to increase our full-term success rate. So, we are definitely ready apart from one spaneer in the works. That being that is has turned awfully cold in the last week and we have 100 cm of snow on the ground. Given that reptiles are highly sensitive to environmental change and will not lay when it is too cold we are hoping for a little bit more warmth in the coming days to encourage laying. Incidentally last year our first egg of the season were on 22nd January.

428. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 2 # 8

These two are the first pairing we have made for several days. Just put them together today (20/01/2013). Both are Tremper sunglows. The male with slight spotting is Helios. the larger one is Roma. heres hoping they live happily ever after and go on to produce some nice sunglow babies.

427. 2013 Breeding season update

2013 breeding season update. We have made something in the order of 19 leopard geckos pairings and 4 sanake to date. So, we are progressing quite nicely and eggs are now visible in some of the females. normally we eggs to get a handful of eggs before the end of January. Only thing preventing this at the moment is the fact that the weather has taken a turn for the worst and it is freezing cold. Whilst are Leos are nice and warm with a heatmat under them the problem is that the ambient heat in the rest of their enclosure, due to the general cold weather, is too low to convince them to drop eggs. hopefully we will soon get a break in the weather and eggs will be produced. Fingers are crossed for some next week.

426. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 2 # 7)

Firstly we must apologize for the written details in this piccy which are incorrect and relate to yesterdays pairing. Just taken the piccy, come back inside and realised we had the wrong piece of paper in the box when we uploaded the image. Would have gone back out and retaken the piccy but it is getting late in the afternnon and its cold outside. Anyways after all that blurb lets explain who we have in todays pairing (14/01/2013). The plain jane box standard wild type is Cumbria who is the girlie. Also shown is Isuzu who we have used over the last couple of seasons to inject a bit of broad striping into our wild type group. Isuzu certainly seemed to enjoy the company of Cumbria straight away as he instantly grabbed hold of her and locked on with a bit of introductory fore play.

425. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 2 # 6)

This is our 17th or thereabout pairing for the 2013 season which we put together this afternoon. Added to 3 snakes pairings made in the last few weeks we should if all goes well be getting a fair number of eggs quite soon. In particular, a few of our Leos are definitely carry eggs which can be seen through their bellies. Anyways the couple below are Dinkum our red tinted stripe and Swoosh a fairly standard wild type Macularius. We are hoping dinkum might sprinkle a bit of his broad striping onto any offspring produced.

424. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 2 # 5)

Pairing up continues a pace. Today we have the "black as the Ace of spades" Kabul our 100% wild caught bloodline pure Afghanicus. Pictured with him is his latest girlfriend Lulu who looks a whiter shade of pale in comparison.

423. Zwolle Terraria 10th February 2013 Leopard Gecko availability.

Lowestoft Leopard geckos and other Reptilestoo is proud to announce that we will be attending the Zwolle Terraria 10th February 2013. We are also running a table at the show with a selection of our animals that with be available to purchase. We also have space in the motor for anybody else form the UK who might be interested in making the trip. If not interested yourself please pass this on to anybody else you think might be interested. A great opportunity for anybody looking to purchase grown on 2012 births and hatchlings.

422. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 2 # 4)..

Even in the cold winter air Einstien shown below has grabbed hold of the females tail to get on with the business of mating. Just put these two togewther in the last half hour. This is Einstiens second outing of the season. The female on this outing is Belletoni who is quite a chunky girl. Bit of the last chance saloon for her as we tried breeding her last year and ended with no eggs. Hopefully 12 months extra maturity and a bit more obesity will result in eggs this season.

421. To be or not to be a name change?

Due to the fact that our reptile collection has significantly expanded since we started this blog we think we need to change its title. As we now have a variety of snakes and lizards we thinking of changing it to Lowestoft Leopard geckos and other reptilestoo.

420 Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 2 # 3).

Our latest pair of breeders is Diva (red eyed Tremper eclipse) and Rip Rap (RAPTOR) who are pictured below. This is Rip Rap's second tour of stud duties since our breeding season was declared open last month. Diva is one of our own produced Leos from 2009. Not 100% sure, as we have lost some computer stored data, but she may be het for RAPTOR which would result in some baby RAPTORS. If not we will have to make do with some lovely red eyed Tremper eclipses. But no point in thinking about your baby Leos until the eggs have been laid.

419. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 2 # 2)

Today it is second time around for Macpuzzle following his earlier stud duties. He is the lighter Mack enigma pictured below. Getting it on with him this time is Spotz who is a fairly standard big spotted wild type normal. That said she was a delicously attractive looking Juvenile with random dark blotches. Shame they broke up into individual spots.

418. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 2 # 1)

From our first round of pairings some of the couples have been together for 14 days or thereabouts so time to move them on to new partners. First partenership in round 2 is D-ream and Hazel who are shown below. Hazel has been with us for a few years now and was originally sold to us a a Diablo Blanco but speckled up with growth to turn out like a Mack RAPTOR. If so looking forward to some nice babies from this pairing if all goes well.

417. meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (12))

Now the festive holiday season is over it's back to the business of pairing up our Leos and African fatsos for the 2013 breeding season. Below is our albino African fatso Nelson and Winnie a wild type stripe who we have just this minute put together. Fingers and toes are crossed we have more success with breeding our African fatsos this time around after only producing a single baby in 2012. But of course we must remember African fatsos are much more sensitive to environmental conditions and are just not as easy to breed as Leopard Geckos.