447. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 3 # 10).

Just put these two together this afternoon. It is the third pairing of the season for our resident African fatso stud Nelson. He is the albino. This time round he has been teamed up with Tunis who is a plain banded wild type who also has a regrown tail after getting it trapped under her hide last year during the process of checking up on her. As a consequence we now always put our the Leos/fatsos on top of the hide after checking under it.

446. Breeding box set up

This is a typical set up we use for our breeding pairs. It is an 18 litre RUB's box. We prefer a one box per pair set up rather than the harem method as we find it easier to keep a record of who did what, where and when. once the pair have been together for a couple of weeks the male will be removed. To help keep eggs warm laid during the night or when we are out we place the nest box at the same end as the hide, which both then are over the heatmat. For setting up a nesting box we add a 20 gram vermiculite/perlite mix + 20 gram water, themn cover with moist sphagnum moss. Once all the contents are in the nest box we weigh and record it so that we can keep the same moisture level throughout the season.

445. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 3 # 9).

Just put hese two moonbeams together this afternoon (24/02/2013). The Blizzard with some paradox marking is Blizz. We originally bought her as a hatchling from Ray Hines back in 2009 then grew her on before selling her on to a local breeder. We got her back Gravid as part of a swap last season and she produced some nice Blazer Blizzard babies. So, not entirely sure if she has any hets. Her partner this season and in the piccy with her is Smash who is het for Diablo Blanco. So we should at least get Blizzards from this pairing.

444. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 3 # 8).

Our latest honeymooners shown above and put together today (22/02/2013)are Revel the super hypo (i.e. no body spots) and Helios our male Tremper sunglow. Helios is the smaller one. The main purpose in this combination is brighten up any hypos that result from this mating.

443. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 3 # 7).

It is two pairs in a day today (20/02/2013) with the two bright sparks below put together in the last hour. The bigger one is the female known as Tarten who is a Mack Bell. Was hoping to put her with Slurm another Mack Bell but he developed an abcess and prolapsed his hemipeni. He has had a course of antibiotics and is hanging on in there but not in good enough form to engage in passionate love making. So taking up the gaunlet and filling the void left in our breeding plans is Acropolis below. He is a nicely coloured Bell and one of our own prodigy from last year. Hoping he steps up to the plate and grabs a hold of the opportunity we have given him.

442. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 3 # 6).

It has a been a bit quite on the paring front for the past couple of weeks. This is mainly due to our visit to the Zwolle show 10th February 2013 and the preparation before it then the tidying up after the event. Anyways we have managed to get back to pairing up today (20/02/2013) with the charming couple below put together this afternoon. The male with bold stripe tendency is Dinkum who also had red hues as a youngster. we are hoping he will be able to pass somne of his charcaterics on to any offspring for this pairing. The female is Demerara who we put with a male roundabout Christmas. Alas nothing seems to have developed from that mating so second time for here. Incidentally Demerara was originally paired up with Isuzu the father of Dinkum. We would ordinarily have put the original pair back together for a secon mating but Isuzu is no longer with us as we sold at the Zwolle show, along with the rest of the stock we offered for sale.

441. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 3 # 5)

And in today's (05/02/2013) pairing we have Kabul and Nell. Kabul is of pure Afghanicus wild caught bloodline, he is the very dark coloured one below. He has now been with us for 3 seasons after we imported him a few years back from PACHERP. He usually produces so nice raw and rugged wild type offspring. For this mating, his third call to breeding duties in 2013, he is going to give it a go with Nell the hi-yellowish one in the picture below.

440. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season ( round 3 # 4 ).

Still plenty of work going on here as we put another pair together today (04/02/2013). Today's couple above are fanta and Einstien. Einstien is the bruiser of a Bell albino. Fanta the more pettite of this couple is some type of albino Mack. Overall this pairing is a bit speculative as we are not 100% sure what genes Fanta is carrying. Also partly explained by her first accidental breeding a few years back to a normal het for Bell that produced some real gems of babies. So with a Bell pairing we atre hoping we might get real gem babies this time around.

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

No rest for the wicked even on the Lord's day. As usual we have been pairing up again. For today (03/02/2013) we have put the two shown below together. The tremper with some jungle in her is Jungle Jane. she has been part of our breeding sq1uad for the last 4 years and during that time has done us really proud with some of the babies she has produced. Her suitor for this season is Rip RAP our current emcumbent RAPTOR striker.

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

Just finished introducing these two cheeky young things to each other this morning (02/02/2013). The black as the ace of spades wild type is Whoopi. Her partner for this season is Mack puzzle, so named on account of him being a Mack enigma. Fingers and toes are crossed we get some really interesting babies from this pairing on account of Mack puzzle's light enigmatic tones and the black as coal patterning from Whoopi.

437. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (round 3 #1).

In the piccy below is today's pairing. The female is Slinky who is a ruby eyed supersnow albino. She is a 2011 hatchling and this is her first go at breeding. Her partner is D-ream a possible dreamsickle. This is D-ream third romantic encounter of the season to date.

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.

416. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (11)

Blimey two pairings in one day. Well it is a public holiday tomorrow and time to put the feet up before we really get the 2013 breeding season underway. These two classic wild types are Mohammad and Lynn. Mohammad is slightly bigger, he usually max's out at 115 gram, and is at the bottom of the piccy. He also boasts a preserved wild caught bloodline with no non purist morphs in his genes.

415. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (10)

What a lovely pair of Trempers shown below. The larger one is Petula who a fairly plain Tremper girl who we bred ourselves back in 2010 if er recall correctly. The smaller one is Smash who was a 2012 hatchling who has a Diablo Blanco from his Papa. not 100% sure but Petula might also be het for Diablo Blanco. fingers are crossed we might find out from any future offspring.

414. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (9)

The latest pairing put together is shown below. The large Bell albino is Forfar who is the female. Bell end the smaller one is a Bell enigma so heres hoping for some nice standard Bells and enigmas.

413. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (8)

Down below we have pictured Helios a male Tremper sunglow. Alongside him is Aifix a fairly plain female hypo. We are hoping the sunglow in Helios will brighten up any offspring we get from this pairing.

412. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (7)

Oh the weather outside is frightful, But the fire is so delightful, And since we've no place to go let them them breed, let them breed, let them breed. And today's delightful couple shown below are Isuzu, with bold stripe and Demerara who is an aberant wild type with reduced spotting. We are hoping Isuzu will pass some of his broad striping on to any offspring.

411. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (6)

Todays pairing is Poppy, the smaller Hypo and Dinkum the fat brute with some broad stripe tendency. Both of these Leos exhibted some red striping as babies and juveniles so we thought they we make an interesting pairing.

410. Lowestoft Afghan sex pest at it again - meet the parents fr the 2013 bredding season (5)

Christmas day plus 1 and our randy Afghanicus stud Kabul has broken off the with the seasonal festivities to get back to breeding duties. In the picture he is the smaller Leo with the dark rugged looks typical of undiluted and pure bred Afghanicus's. The female is a common Macularius wild type called Scrabble.

409. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (4)

Today it was Einstien's turn to return to stud duties. He is the big Bell albino shown below. In keeping with his Islamic principles we have lined him up with Goldust a definite non-slapper and certified virgin. She came to us from Slurm geckos at the Chelmsford show back in September 2011. Since when we have grown her on to ensure she is a maxed out adult. As far as we are aware she is a Bell enigma. That being another reason to make sure she is at least 2 christmas's old before breeding; we usually find that some of the enigma morphs are a bit fragile and it is advisable to wait a little bit longer before breeding the females. Anyways fingers crossed we will get some nice Bell's and enigmas from this pairing.

408. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (3)

Here we have a couple of RAPTORS who have just been paired up this afternoon. The big un is the female who is called Caesium who we bought from Ray Hines table at the Kempton show back in August 2011. the male is Rip Rap who came to us from Norwich Leopard Geckos. RAPTOR to RAPTOR sounds like we should get RAPTOR babes if all goes well.

407. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (2)

Just paired up these two Leos a few minutes ago. The slightly smaller light coloured one is the male who goes by the name of D-ream. So called on account of him being, we think, a Dreamsicle. Hopefully if he does the business with his girlfriend, and we ultimately get some offspring we should be able to confirm his morph status. On this outing his girlfriend shown here is Superlative who is an absolutely gorgeous Mack Tremper. Morph calculator say we should, if all goes well, get some cracking babies from this combination. Just to confirm these two have been put together today (23/12/2012)and not as written on the piccy. Obviously I am one day behind. Must have been time warped from the excitement of Christmas lol.

406. Meet the parents for the 2013 breeding season (1)

The big fella in this photo is Macpuzzle who is a Mack Snow enigma. He is pictured with Bauble a Mack hypo who is his first liasion for the 2013 breeding season. Seeing as he is such a fine specimen we think he will breed some nice offspring and intend to use him as a stud for a few more of our ladies. According to the morph calculator on average this pairing should produce:12.5% Supersnow enigma (1copy) Hypo (1 Copy), 25% Mack Snow enigma(1 Copy) Hypo (1 Copy), 12.5% Enigma (1 Copy) Hypo (1 Copy), 12.5% Supersnow hypo (1 Copy), 25% Mack Snow Hypo (1 Copy) & 12.5% Hypo (1 Copy). Hmm quite a variety from one pairing.

405. 2013 Breeding season declared open

As usual at Winter solstice plus one day we will be starting to pair up our Mum and Dad breeding Leos today for the new season. Also for this season we will be using the brand new Mayan calendar to record and plot all our squads progress this season. So what with our fortnightly weighing and sorting out the breeding boxes we have plenty of work to get through today. We will try and upload piccy's of our breeding couples as soon as possible.

404 Additions to the first team breeding squad for 2013 (3)

This is Bell end, so named on account of him being a Bell enigma. Just weighed him today and he is at 43 gram which considering he is male is plenty chunky enough to put him out to stud for the coming season starting in 8 days time.

403. Additions to the first team breeding squad for 2013 (2)

This cheeky chunky little monkey is Macpuzzle who we purchased from Daniel Browning last month. He is a male Mack enigma who we are hoping to introduce to some of our girls, starting from 22nd December in 9 days time. We think that is why he is smiling.

402. Additions to the first team breeding squad for 2013.

Wot with no more eggs left to hatch and it also being a bit slow for other news we thouht we might as well introduce some of our new additions to the breeding squad for the forthcoming season. Which is incidentally now less than a month away for us. We always begin on 22nd December straight after the Winter solistice. Anyways shown below is D-ream who we believe is a Dreamsickle or posssibly a Nova. He has come to us from Norwich Leopard Geckos. He is a male and with his solid red eyes should match up nicely with some of our solid red eyed Trempers. Also if a definite Dreamsickle he should also match up nicely with a couple of ruby eyed Macks we have in our breeding squad.

401. The incubator has been shut down.

Well folks we have switched off the incubator for the 2012 season as our last couple of eggs were dud. So no more babies this year and all hands to the pumps to get everything prepared for 2013. We usually start putting our early season boys and girls together straight after the winter solistice on 22nd December. That usually means we start getting a few eggs laid before the end of January and hatchlings from late March onwards.

400. We have joined the banned fraternity on RFUK

Anybody else been banned from RFUK like what i just now by a moderator who goes by the name of Proxicator on RFUK? Also a member of Invicta Aracnid club. All started off with this message from him at 12:02 hrs this afternoon as follows" Hi Austin Allegro It has come to our notice that your friend Christian has used your IP to create new accounts within RFUK. Christian (smart1 and various other aliases) has a permanent ban on RFUK and therefore subsequent accounts will be banned. As he is obviously using your IP to create them that implicates you. I strongly suggest you change your password and deter Christian from making further accounts from your IP. The 3 accounts we have highlighted so far should attribute 3 infractions to your account resulting in a 1 day ban. If I find another account from your IP I shall submit to the admin team that your account is banned too. It is against the rules of the forum to provide access for banned accounts." I will post more later.

399. October sun shines on Kefalonia

A big welcome from Kefalonia shown below who has just emerged from the egg this morning (06/10/2012). In fact probably still wet behind the ears as her hatch was in the past hour. Parents are Patio (hypo) and Helios who is a Tremper sunglow. According to our records the incubation took 55 days. hatch weight looks to be an easy 3 gram.

398. And the 2012 breeding season Spinalonga's into October

This is Spingalonga who hatched out 01/10/2012. She/ he is the sibling to Hydra in the previous post. So not too much to add to the biography apart from one day's extra incubation.

397. Yes we have no baby Bell's only baby Mack Bell's

We had forgotten that we still had a clutch of Mack Bell eggs until yesterday morning, (30/09/2012) when we found this little chap/chapess hatched out. Both parents, Slurm and Memphis are Mack Bells. Also worth noting we had not expected any eggs from this pairing after only marrying them together after the summer solistice when breeding goes on the slide. Anyways a super hatchling which ever way you look at it. Christened this one as Hydra. Incubation period was 49 days and looks a possible 3 gram hatch. Stop press the sibling is also breaking out of the egg as we type.

396. Final Bell for 2012?

This Bell albino hatched out today 29/09/2012 and just might be our final Bell for 2012. We think we might have another clutch of Bell eggs still incubating but are not 100% confident they will go full term. This babe is sired by Drill bit and Einstein. Incubation was 49 days and weight at hatch looked 3 gram. Sticking with our Olympian/Greco names emphasis this season this one goes by the name of Cypriot.

395. A nice tasty Kalamata is our record breaker

This babe hatched out 28/09/2012 and is the sibling to Jocasta shown in the previous post. Only different biographic detail is an extra days incubation. Name of this one is Kalamata hence the post title. Also the record breaking hint is due to this babe being, if our records are correct, our 125th hatchling for the 2012 season. As far as we are aware our previous highest number of hatchlings in a season was 124.

394. A lightly done Hypo

We are having a bit of a late season flourish with our second hatchling today (27/09/201) and pictured below. Goes by the name of Jocasta and the dark banding was already brown at hatch and without a trace of black. Comes out of Balti who is also a hypo and sired by, we recall correctly, Kabul our resident Afghanicus Taliban terrorist. Weight at hatch looks a typical 3 gram and incubation was 48 days.

393. A Phi double.

If not the double of Phi in the previous post this hatchling from today (27/09/2012) should be fairly similar as they are from the same clutch of eggs. So with the exception of an extra day's incubation the boigraphy is identical. She or he is called Eryxo.

392. Phi time

This hatchling from yesterday 26/09/2012 is Phi. She/he hatched out after 50 days in the incubator and is the prodigy of Patricia and Dallas. Looks like a 3 gram hatch.

391. Consequences of escapees.

Floorboards raised as search for fugitive Leopard Gecko continues.

390. Two-a-day Whoopi babe.

This is Eta who is a sibling to Upsilon shown in the previous post. She/he hatched out a few hours later on the same day. So no need to spell out any biography as it is exactly the same.

389. Whoopi babe.

This is Upsilon who hatched out Saturday 15/08/2012. Parents are the ever reliable Whoopi and Kabul our pure Afghan Taliban.Looked to be atypical 3 gram at hatch following 46 days in the incubator.