Golden ( Thai Sandstone ) Geckos

Note: I have a few more eggs in the incubator but I am selling all my breeders and will no longer be breeding these geckos so that I can focus on terrestrial species. I still know a lot of breeders and importers however, so let me know if you're looking for one.

These are really pretty geckos, but they can have an attitude. I've never been bitten by any of mine, but just look at that evil glare this little female is giving me for checking on her egg! She'd certainly chomp a fingertip if I was silly enough to stick one near her face.

Females are smaller than the males, and the larger males can get up to 10 inches or so. Goldens are a pretty golden-green color, although if the temperature gets too low they may take on a greenish brown color. 

If you really want to replicate their wild environment you'll need to get your lighting and heat on a timer so that the temperature and light are up around 78-86 degrees during the day and down around 70-77 degrees at night. I tend to keep mine at a more constant 80 degrees simply because I don't want any eggs laid at night to drop temps. 

Humidity should be around 75% which is encouraged by misting the cage daily, or even twice daily. The geckos prefer to lick the mist from the cage walls than to drink from their dishes. It also helps to have a large water dish that is big enough for them to lay in and the water evaporating helps with the humidity level.

Goldens need a lot of space in captivity, with lots of branches and hiding places up high in the cage. A tall twenty gallon tank with a locking lid is the smallest I'd recommend. A male with females will need at least a 55 gallon tank, and that's pushing it. Like other arboreal geckos these guys can go right up the side so a secure top is essential. Let me tell you how frustrating it is trying to chase one of these guys across your ceiling for an hour or two as they manage to always stay just out of reach, ugh!

I use a substrate combination of Bed-a-beast and Reptile bark for my goldens unless it's a gravid female which gets an undersheet of paper towel covered in bark to keep the nest moist enough for egg safety. 

Goldens need a good diet of insects, mainly crickets, although waxworms can be used. Some people offer baby food as well, but mine don't seem to touch it. Dust your feeders with RepCal and maybe a little Herptivite and get them gutloaded before you offer them to your geckos, especially if you've got breeding females, egg laying takes a toll on these girls and may put them off their food a bit if they're egg protective. 

If you decide to breed your goldens you've really got to monitor them closely because they may not get along and will often fight to the death. Putting the male into the females cage or both into a neutral cage may help a little, but if a territorial dispute arrises, make sure that you have gloves and are quick on your feet.



 
It may be really hard to seperate a female from her egg (not just for the protectiveness of them, see the photo at the top of the page) but because the eggs will stick to whatever they're laid on, be that glass, wood, anything in the cage. It's a royal pain in the butt that is usually best managed by simply taping a ventilated deli cup over the egg and just warming that end of the cage to the 80-84 degrees Fareinheit they need and misting the cage to keep the humidity up. Tape the cup down to prevent the mom from eating the babies as they hatch, which she will almost certainly do despite how protective of her nest she might have been prior to hatching.

If you layer the cage with paper towl or cardboard you may be able to get the female to lay on something that you can more easily remove and place in an incubator. Not a guarrantee but at least a better chance. I've tried offering mine nesting boxes I use for my leopard geckos, but the goldens seem to prefer sticking their eggs to the outside of it rather than the inside. If they're fertile the eggs may hatch anywhere from 65 to 200 days after their laid.

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