Rhacodactylus Ciliatus (Crested Gecko Colony)

I am not going to go into much detail since i have a good handful of them. I will be putting a couple pairs together this season.

Ty




Jack




Otis




Jaymes



Lola




Harriet



Charlotte



Caroline



I will keep y'all updated with pairings that I decide to do etc. on this thread.

Thanks for looking

Vary nice, I see a lot of crested with no tails, yours look nice fat a healthy.

thanks man, I take pride in all of my collection. I don't know whats up with people who continuously post ones up for sale even just hatched juvies with no tails (frog butts) I think it disrupts their normal lives without them even though they do just fine. I have one male (ty) who is a huge spaz and one day while working in the reptile room I spooked him and he dropped his tail. He has never been the same ever since.

Beautiful!!

aw, i like tailess cresties. both mine have their tails though, not that i mind. i love the little spots on the last 2

Again nice pics. I have a male that looks very much like the one in the third pic down. He dropped his tail about 3 months ago while I was hammering in the same room. This has not changed his temperment however, he is still very mean. I keep changing my mind about whether or not I want to breed them. I truly love cresteds, tailed or not, but I have so much to take care of already. Also at Daytona this past year I saw them as cheap as 10.00 for babies. I hate to add to what appears to be an already saturated market. Still though....
Chip

Chip,
I completely agree with you! The Crested Market and or World is most definitely oversaturated, as so is many other species of Reptile. For some reason, the shift changed from people wanting to keep reptiles to now everyone wanting to breed them no matter if they have the space or knowledge. It also is frustrating to me that some people still only keep them to "make money" which by all means is not going to happen in reality unless you spend tons of time learning everything about the species including genetics and dump huge amounts of money into your collection. Its sad to see people selling cresteds for $10; that is horribly and it is ruining the hobby for small enthusiasts.

Having said all of this, I only breed maybe one or two pairs and breed for desired genetics and QUALITY NOT QUANTITY!!!

I hope all new keepers and enthusiasts of any type of reptile read this and take it for what its worth. Please don't breed just to breed or because it is cool and "oh I can make money"......WRONG

I agree, even though I just started into that end of it last year. I can't stand it when people get pets of any kind and then don't give them what they need to thrive. I did hundreds of hours of research when I got my rescue blue tongue skink. We built an outdoor habitat for the summer and made it as close to what he would have in nature. When the babies were born in the spring, I bought one so I would have something to compare him to to make sure he was hitting appropriate benchmarks. When we realized they were male/female, I again did hundreds of hours of research and talked to the breeder of my female many many times before we decided to raise them. It was only then that I decided to try my hand at it. And you are very right, you are not going to make a lot of money doing it unless you are in it for the long haul and have the right mindset and dedication to handle it as a career rather than a hobby.

Hmm, while it is a bit unusual to see juvenile cresteds with many tails ripped off (unless they have been housed together), it is not necessarily a bad sign when adult cresteds do not have tails. In the wild, adult crested geckos often do not have their tails since they do not regenerate them after throwing them. A crested may throw his/her tail when he or she feels threatened...when he or she is mating (this happens often)...or sometimes for seemingly no reason at all (I found a male who had dropped his tail in his cage one day). I really dislike the implication that no tails = bad husbandry. The cresteds I have all have their tails, and only one or two of my old collection ever lost them, but still that is a not a reasonable judgment to make just by looking at someone's pictures. Bad sheds, lost weight, or burns would be more indicative of health problems.

As for breeding/over-saturation of the market, it is bound to happen with any species that can be sold for money. However people who are out to make a quick buck will not necessarily stay in the business long. When they realize they can only sell their low-grade geckos for 10 dollars a pop, hopefully they will vamoose to selling inanimate objects instead of living creatures. Those people seem to always be looking for "bigger and better" things anyway. I have seen so many "entire collection for sale" posts in the past half year that it is a bit scary!

Anyway, nice collection you have there. I am glad to see that you have males that are obviously better quality than the females. I hate to see people breed high quality females with low quality males, since males can be obtained at very reasonable prices. Keep us updated!

DaganGecko wrote:

Hmm, while it is a bit unusual to see juvenile cresteds with many tails ripped off (unless they have been housed together), it is not necessarily a bad sign when adult cresteds do not have tails. In the wild, adult crested geckos often do not have their tails since they do not regenerate them after throwing them. A crested may throw his/her tail when he or she feels threatened...when he or she is mating (this happens often)...or sometimes for seemingly no reason at all (I found a male who had dropped his tail in his cage one day). I really dislike the implication that no tails = bad husbandry. The cresteds I have all have their tails, and only one or two of my old collection ever lost them, but still that is a not a reasonable judgment to make just by looking at someone's pictures. Bad sheds, lost weight, or burns would be more indicative of health problems.

As for breeding/over-saturation of the market, it is bound to happen with any species that can be sold for money. However people who are out to make a quick buck will not necessarily stay in the business long. When they realize they can only sell their low-grade geckos for 10 dollars a pop, hopefully they will vamoose to selling inanimate objects instead of living creatures. Those people seem to always be looking for "bigger and better" things anyway. I have seen so many "entire collection for sale" posts in the past half year that it is a bit scary!

Anyway, nice collection you have there. I am glad to see that you have males that are obviously better quality than the females. I hate to see people breed high quality females with low quality males, since males can be obtained at very reasonable prices. Keep us updated!

I never once implicated that missing tails was due to bad husbandry or anything like that. I simply stated that some breeders seem to have all of their geckos w/ no tails and some have a little of both and some have all their tails. Either way is really fine. Their prehensile tail does benefit them even though they get along fine without it.

As far as people selling them for $10 is not the way to go at all. That is completely ruining the market by doing so. People even sell "higher end" cresteds for a fraction of the cost that they should be. It really boils down to people being in it for all the wrong reasons and not just because they love reptiles. I personally do not breed for the money and only breed maybe one or two pairs at the most per season in hopes to get good quality and traits that I want and want to perfect over the years. It is something I enjoy and love doing, not something I want to make money off of even though it can be nice to get some in return after spending thousands of dollars on my entire reptile collection plus the cost to keep all of them.

For years I used to either give away any excess herps that I had to good homes or sometimes I would trade them out. In the last couple of years however I went into a small part time business with a friend. We are trying to concentrate on species that 1. interest us and we enjoy working with and 2. are somewhat midrange in price. The emails that I received have been amusing at times. For some of the higher end species I have been told that it is riduculous to ask X amount of money for this or that particular animal while one anonymous person emailed me stating that I was ruining the market value for asking too little. All in all I have been enjoying the experience. Like I mentioned with the cresteds sometimes it is difficult to balance a decision. I would actually have no issue with a crested being sold for 10.00 if it was assured that the animal would be cared for. Unfortunately however so many times cheap pets are not taken seriously by novice keepers, and that is what disturbes me the most.
Chip

I refer to the cheap pet trade as the rent a pet syndrome, too many people want something cool to have, then the newness wares off and they want to get ride of it. Or worse just plan icknore it and the animal suffers. This is my reason for people not to sell any pet at a cut rate price.

smd58 wrote:

I refer to the cheap pet trade as the rent a pet syndrome, too many people want something cool to have, then the newness wares off and they want to get ride of it. Or worse just plan icknore it and the animal suffers. This is my reason for people not to sell any pet at a cut rate price.

I couldn't agree with you more!! I bet even keepers on this forum and other forums wont keep their animals their whole life, either 1) because they get bored with them and decide that they don't like them anymore, 2)they stop having the integrity and responsibility to want to keep care of their animals. I see both of these too often and it is a shame. I personally will keep all of my collection until their death by natural cause, Unless I am involved in a trade or need to switch out bloodlines etc. I have fully committed myself to my animals and they don't deserve anything less from anyone.This is due to me doing my research and making sure they are something that I like and can accommodate for a long time. Just like a dog, you wouldn't just get rid of it would you? you wouldn't just stop taking care of it would you? (I know unfortunately even some people are guilty of that as well, but a lower percentage than that of exotic keepers)

i cant imagine getting rid of my pets because im bored of them or something.

I see it almost everyday in my job.

I am not going to say that I never trade things out that I come to find that I do not enjoy keeping for whatever reason however I rarely ever make impulse purchases these days. Even when I do pick something up on "impulse" it is a species that I have already been considering at some point. With all of that being said I have one of the oldest living groups of leopard geckos in the country and they have been in my care the whole time. In addition many of my salamander groups have been with me for close to 8 years. I once kept a Mexican red knee tarantula obtained as an adult for over 25 years.
Chip

The difference with us and many pet store customers is that we are enthusiasts rather than just owners. Parents take their kids in around Easter to buy them a baby bunny because they think they are cute and would make good pets. There is no research and they don't associate with other rabbit owners or go on line to learn about them. The animals are the ones that suffer. Many owners will never understand or accept that we accept the responsibility to properly care for animals FOR THE DURATION when we buy them, not until the novelty wears off.