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AFRICAN FAT-TAILED GECKO CARE SHEET!

General Information

A pair of Super Tangerine African Fat-Tailed geckos.

Click to enlarge.

African Fat-Tailed Geckos (Hemitheconyx caudicinctus) make a great first reptile, they are very similar in care to the leopard gecko (so this caresheet is almost an exact copy, but do read it all as some bits of information are different). They grow to maximum of 12 inches, although 8 is more common, and can live for upto 20 years. They come from Western Africa and live in a fairly tropical habitat. They can become very tame and will tolerate handling making them great pet reptiles, however you do sometimes find wild caught specimens which may not be so friendly and should be avoided as with most wild caught reptiles. This caresheet will guide you through the various aspects of caring for African fat-tailed geckos, covering all topics required for you to keep them successfully.

Housing

African fat-tailed gecko enclosures do not have to take up much space, a single gecko will live happily in a 2ft vivarium all its life, adding about another square foot of floor space for every extra gecko you add. You must also make sure you keep only one male per enclosure as they will fight. If you wish to keep African fat-tailed geckos in groups it is best to make sure you do not have a male and female pair as the male may overbreed her, one male with several females can work, or have a female group with no male. It is not always guaranteed that animals will get along and you should always have the resources to separate them if needs be. You can make their housing as simple, or as naturalistic as you like, aslong as you provide the basics that they need to thrive. They need a warm end and a cooler end in their enclosure, the heating section below will cover how to achieve this. They will need multiple hides, one at each end of the vivaurim and a moist hide to help them when shedding, this can be placed in the warm end. African fat-tailed geckos will also benefit from a light spray of the whole vivarium once a day. If keeping in groups, please make sure there are enough hides for each gecko so they can get away from each other when they need to. You must also ensure they always have fresh water available to drink, this should be provided in a shallow bowl and changed daily. Powdered calcium can be provided in a small dish (milk bottle tops or similar work well for this) as the geckos will lick the calcium. You should also make sure you dust their food, this will be covered below in the feeding section in more detail. You may add foliage to the vivarium if you wish, this gives the geckos more hiding / exploring space and makes the vivarium look more appealing.

Substrate

So what substrate should you use on the bottom of your vivarium? You have several choices, these are listed below, along with any advantages and disadvantages of each one.

Sand - Advantages: easy to spot clean, looks natural. Disadvantages: can cause impaction if ingested.
Moss - Advantages: keeps humidity up, easy to spot clean. Disadvantages: can cause impaction, can mold.
Paper Towels - Advantages: no risk of impaction, easy to change. Disadvantages: looks unnatural, hard to spot clean.
Newspaper - Advantages: no risk of impaction, easy to change. Disadvantages: looks unnatural, hard to spot clean.
Tiles - Advantages: no risk of impaction, easy to wipe clean, hard wearing. Disadvantages: takes time to install (I grout mine in, they are easier to wipe clean this way).
Bark - Advantages: holds some humidity, easy to spot clean. Disadvantages: can cause impaction, can mold.

Heating

With African fat-tailed geckos being cold blooded like all reptiles you must provide them with a heat source so they can regulate their own body temperature. All reptiles thermoregulate, what this means is that they move around in their environment to regulate how warm their bodies are. When you see reptiles basking they are warming up their bodies, needed to carry out all daily functions. If they get too warm, they simply move to somewhere cooler to cool down. If they cant cool down, they run a great risk of suffering from heat stress, which can and does kill. You can now see how important it is to have the correct thermal gradient in the vivarium. You want the warm end at around 88* and the cool end about 70*. So you now know that you want a warm end and a cool end, so how do you go about achieving this? Below are several ways of creating a warm end, or basking spot, if your vivairum is the correct size, the cool end should sort itself out, aslong as you don't keep the vivarium in a really hot room. Please be aware that all heat sources should be connected to a thermostat to control their temperature. The type of thermostat depends on your heating method, so I will include that below.

Heatmat: A heatmat is the easiest way to provide your gecko with a warm end, you should use a heatmat which covers about 1/3 of your vivarium floor space, and place it right at one end. When using a wooden vivarium you need to place the heatmat inside, if your using a glass tank, you can place it outside, but make sure you raise the glass tank slightly or it may crack. When using a heatmat, you can use a mat or temperature thermostat, there is no need to use dimming or pulse thermostats, I can also recommend Habistat or Microclimate thermostats. Make sure your thermostat probe is placed in the vivarium on top of your heatmat and substrate, this will allow you to accurately control how warm your warm end gets. You now need a digital thermometer (with a probe, or an infra red gun) to measure how warm it is getting and adjust the thermostat as needed. Please do not use the analogue thermometers as they are not accurate.
Heat lamp: You may also use a heat lamp to provide your basking spot. You need to use a red lamp so it does not disturb them at night (they cannot see red light). You again need to set this up at one end of the vivarium and set it up just like you did a heat mat. The only difference is that you need to use a dimming thermostat. This type of thermostat dims down the bulb to create the correct temperature, a normal thermostat would turn it on and off, creating a disco and shortening the life of your bulb! Depending on the size of your vivarium and how warm the room you are housing them in is, you may have to try different wattage bulbs to find one which works best, however 40W / 60W is normally ok. It is a good idea to place small pebbles / rocks under your basking bulbs they can absorb heat and warm your gecko from below. Remember to check your temperatures carefully with a digital thermometer though.

Lighting

African fat-tailed geckos are nocturnal so they do not need to be provided with UV light. Because of this there is no need to add any lighting if you don't want to. If you are using a red heat lamp for heat, this will provide you with enough light to see your geckos when they are out at night. If you are using a heatmat, you can add a low wattage (you don't want to add any more heat) red or moonlight (made by exo terra) light bulb so you can see them when its dark.

Food / Supplements

African fat-tailed geckos are not usually very fussy eaters and will eat all of the common livefood insects, including: crickets, locusts, mealworms, waxworms (only give these as a treat as they are fatty) and roaches. You can use any of the above as a staple diet, other than waxworms. A varied diet is always best, so changing what food you use every now and again will benefit your gecko. It is important to make sure you gutload any insects before feeding them to your gecko, this ensures they are full of the nutrition your gecko needs. You can buy insect food from most of the livefood suppliers, which do this for you, or you can make your own. You can use oats, fresh fruit and veg etc to feed your insects prior to giving them to your gecko. If you feed crickets make sure you do not leave any left over crickets in the vivarium for too long as they can munch on your gecko while its sleeping, not something you want to happen. Mealworms can be left in at all times in a bowl and your gecko will help itself when hungry. Babies should be fed every day, and adults can be fed every other.

Along with gutloading, correct supplementation is important, for this you need to dust your feeder insects with a calcium / vitamin powder before feeding them. How often you need to do this depends on the age of your gecko. For babies, dust with calcium 5 days of the week, and with a multi-vitamin 2 days of the week. For adults, you can cut down to calcium 2 times a week and a multi-vitamin just once a week. An easy way to dust your insects is to put some dust in a bag, drop the insects in, shake the bag and then tip the insects into the vivarium.

Cleaning

African fat-tailed geckos are not messy reptiles and will normally defecate in one area of the vivarium. You should spot clean this area daily as this will help keep your vivarium free of bacteria. A full clean out should be done when needed, usually every week or so. During this you should clean any furniture in the vivairum with a reptile disinfectant. If you keep the vivarium clean in this way you should minimize any health problems.

Breeding / Sexing

If you have read the leopard gecko caresheet before this one, you will see that its almost identical. And the sexing of African fat-tailed geckos is also the same as with leopard geckos, If you look at the vent (under the gecko, by its tail) you will either see, a line of pores and 2 bulges - a male, or no / very slight pores and no bulges - a female. You should not breed your geckos until they are both atleast a year old, perfectly healthy and of a good size and weight (atleast 50g). The breeding season starts around late November and they should be laying eggs by the start of the year. This is the only different between breeding African fat-tailed geckos and leopard geckos. You can introduce your geckos around late November and they should breed. Breeding at first may seem a little rough, the male will bite the female before biting and holding near her neck whilst he mates with her. This will not injure the female in any way. You now need to get ready for the eggs. If the mating was successful she should be ready to lay in anything from 2 to 4 weeks. You need to make sure your incubator is set up and running now so you are ready for when the eggs come. You can make your own incubator using a polybox, heatmat and thermostat, or buy one ready made. African fat-tailed geckos are temperature sexed, so set your incubator at around 80* for females, 88* for males and somewhere in the middle for a mixture. As she comes closer to laying she will hunt for a suitable laying site. You can provide a small tub filled with damp sand, vermiculite and similar for this. Make only a small hole for her to get in and out of the tub and keep it moist. When she lays she will dig a small hole, lay 2 eggs and then cover them up. You will know she has laid as she will look saggy around her belly. Now she has laid her eggs you need to transfer them to your incubator. During this time you must be very careful not to turn the eggs as you will drown them. Carefully place them in a small tub filled with damp, but not soaking wet vermiculite, with a few holes in the lid and place this is your incubator. It helps if you make small indents in the vermiculite with your finger before placing the eggs in so they cannot roll around. After a few days you can candle your eggs to see if they are fertile, to do this you need to shine a small torch into the eggs. If they are fertile they will glow red and you may see veins forming, unfertile eggs will look yellow and will soon collapse.

In anything from 45 to 60+ days the eggs should hatch, leave any hatchlings in your incubator for 24 hours to allow them to fully absorb their yolk. After this time they can be moved out and into their new homes. I keep babies separately in small tubs but you can keep them in groups of similar size. They need the same set up as adults, just on a smaller scale. They will not eat for the first few days until they shed, then you can start feeding them appropriately sized dusted food. They should start to grow very quickly and by the time they are 6 weeks old they can go to new homes if your selling them, provided they are eating and shedding well.

Morphs

African fat-tailed geckos appear in several different colours / patterns, although not to be extent of leopard geckos. Below is a list of the different morphs available. You can also mix these colors / patterns, for example you can get striped albinos.

- Normal
- Banded
- Striped
- Albino
- Albino tangerine