I know reptile and leopard gecko content isn’t for everyone, but when we were researching the best kind of reptile for our family, I devoured all of the information I could find out there which was, mostly, from experts or seasoned reptile enthusiasts. It was all incredibly helpful and what inevitably led us to choosing a leopard gecko for our family, but I would’ve loved to have been able to talk with a friend about everything and it’s my hope that this blog post will feel like just that for anyone who may be considering a leopard gecko as a family pet.
Why We Chose a Leopard Gecko
We read a lot of books and talked to numerous reptile enthusiasts over the course of about a year before deciding on a leopard gecko for our family. It seems like bearded dragons are a go-to lizard for beginners to consider and initially we thought that’s the direction we were going to go until a conversation with a man who worked at Cold Blooded & Bizarre, a local Charlotte-area specialty reptile shop, steered us in a different direction. (Ultimately we decided against a bearded dragon because they get quite large — 2x the size of a leopard gecko — and require a larger aquarium while also being a little higher maintenance than leopard geckos.)
The more we learned about leopard geckos, the more convinced we became that a leopard gecko was the right fit for us. They are wildly known as great pets for beginners and are relatively low maintenance. Leopard geckos are smaller in size (Lucky is full grown and fits easily in one of my hands) and adapt to being held gently fairly well. They do not require too much in terms of specialty lighting, controlled humidity, habitat upkeep, etc.
One thing that is VERY important to know: Leopard geckos can live 20+ years. They are a commitment and will be with your family for a LONG time. This is something very important to consider since children’s interests are fleeting but a leopard gecko’s life is not.
How We Found Our Leopard Gecko: A Reptile Rescue!
Through my research about various lizards and geckos, I discovered reptile rescues! I am not sure why I never thought of this as an option but the minute I realized there are rescues out there dedicated to caring for reptiles and rehoming surrendered and rescued reptiles, I knew this was the route we would go to find a leopard gecko for our family.
There are SO many pros to rescuing a reptile aside from the obvious (giving a reptile a second chance!) and I cannot recommend going through a reptile rescue to find a lizard or gecko for your family enough, especially if you have young children. Many of the rescues know their reptiles well and can direct you to a lizard or gecko that will fit best in your family dynamic. This was certainly the case for us, as we found Lucky through Southern Reptile Haven, a rescue located in the Jacksonville Beach area. They were able to recommend 3-year-old Lucky for our family, knowing we have 3 young boys in our family who would want to be able to hold their new pet on occasion. There are many reptiles out there who prefer not to be held so finding a leopard gecko who would mesh well with enthusiastic children was important to us.
(FYI, if you live in the Jacksonville Beach area, I cannot recommend Southern Reptile Haven enough. They were beyond amazing, not only with helping us find Lucky but they were also the star of Chase’s birthday party. You may read more about Chase’s reptile birthday party and the moment we surprised him with Lucky here!)
Lucky’s Habitat
We majorly lucked out when it came to setting up the perfect habitat for Lucky. We bought everything we needed for Lucky from Southern Reptile Haven; it was the entire habitat she’d already been living in which helped make her transition into living with our family so smooth!
Lucky’s set up includes the following:
- 30” Open-Front Glass Terrarium
- Walnut Shell Bedding + Eco Earth (50/50 ratio) — If we were setting up her cage on our own for the first time, I’d definitely look into one of these terrarium liners!
- One large flat rock
- One faux log hideaway
- Two rock caves (she loves her larger cave and spends a lot of time in it during the day)
- Large faux plant
- Water dish + ReptiSafe Water Conditioner Drops
- Calcium powder dish + ReptiCalcium
- 1 daytime heat light + Sun dome
- 1 night heat light (100W) + Sun dome
- Temperature/humidity gauge
Caring for Lucky
I was admittedly very intimidated by caring for a reptile but learning to care for Lucky was really easy and she’s a very, very low maintenance pet. As I’m typing all of this out, it may seem like a lot but on a day-to-day basis we don’t have to do much!
(Lucky loves her little cave and spends a lot of time resting in it during the day — she’s nocturnal — and was hanging out in there when I snapped pics of her terrarium.)
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Feeding
We joke that Lucky is a bougie little leopard gecko because she has a strong preference for live crickets. This is the only semi-high maintenance thing about her because it means we’re making weekly trips to the pet store for large live crickets to feed our girl.
Over the past two months, we’ve been able to keep crickets alive for longer in a cricket keeper cage with some dark leafy greens, a small slice of whole wheat bread, carrots, oranges, etc. so we don’t have to go to the pet store more than once a week. (Also, feeding crickets nutrient-dense foods 24 hours before feeding them to your reptile is a practice called “gut loading” and it’s extra beneficial for Lucky!) I think we can probably stretch our pet store visits to bi-weekly visits but we haven’t tried stocking up on more than 30 crickets at a time yet. We feed Lucky 10 crickets a few times a week and watching Lucky hunt is one of the coolest things for our family! Chase keeps note of her hunting progress and the most crickets we’ve seen her eat at one time is six. Go Lucky, go!
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Water
Lucky’s water dish is always filled with fresh water. We were instructed by the reptile rescue to include a drop or two of ReptiSafe water conditioner drops in her water to remove chloramines, chlorine and ammonia, and provide essential ions and electrolytes.
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Calcium Powder
Calcium powder is incredibly important for leopard geckos to ensure good bone density. We keep a heavy sprinkle of ReptiCalcium in a small dish in Lucky’s cage at all times.
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Cleaning
This is the BEST part of leopard gecko maintenance because we have yet to need to clean Lucky’s cage. She only poops a few times a week and it’s always been in the same far corner of her cage. Her poop is easy to scoop out with a tissue and throw away and her cage does not smell at all. (The cricket keeper cage, however, can get stinky.) We still haven’t needed to change her bedding but the reptile rescue said we shouldn’t need to do this more than a couple times a year. The terrarium liner mats seem like an even easier option for cleaning/maintenance and I definitely would’ve looked into this option if we didn’t go through the rescue for Lucky’s habitat.
Handling Lucky
With three curious, excitable and reptile-loving young boys in our home, we knew we needed a reptile who would tolerate being held fairly well. Thankfully Southern Reptile Haven knew Lucky and her personality and ensured us she was a good fit for a family with children. They were right but that doesn’t mean Lucky was sprinting out of her little cave and into our arms whenever we opened the doors of her terrarium.
Chase and I watched a bunch of YouTube videos about how to properly hold and handle a leopard gecko and also watched educational videos about a leopard gecko’s body language. We learned about “gaping” — when a leopard gecko opens their mouth very wide — and the boys understand that when Lucky gapes at us, she is very much done being held and it’s immediately time to put her back into her cage. The boys also know that if Lucky runs away from our hands when we attempt to scoop her out of her terrarium, it means she’s not up for being held and we’ll hold her another time.
Leopard geckos are nocturnal and Lucky certainly fits this mold. She loves her night light and comes out of her cave every single night when we switch her heat light from her day light to her night heat light. (This is also the time we often feed her!) Since Lucky seems most energetic in the evenings, this is generally the time the boys hold her. She’s come a LONG way in terms of tolerating their attention and seems to enjoy crawling around in the spaces they build for her out of their magnetic PicassoTiles for a little adventure!
And now that I’ve written waaay more words about Lucky and leopard geckos than I ever dreamed I would, I’ll sign off but please let me know if you have any questions about leopard geckos and I’m more than happy to answer them in the comments section of this post.
In summary: Lucky is awesome! Leopard geckos are awesome and we’ve loved having Lucky as a wonderful, scaly member of our crew.
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From one mom to another who has kiddos who adore critters, this was so fun to read. Lucky is “lucky” to have you for a family. You are clearly taking such good care of her! <3
Amazing! Caring for Lucky doesn’t sound too tough, but the crickets sound kind of yucky, LOL! Would love to see a photo of her terrarium set-up!
What a fun and different pet. Very helpful to read about care from someone in the middle of it
I too would love to see a picture of the terrarium set-up.
Hi Pamela!! I just uploaded two pics of her terrarium to the post!
Hi Melissa!! I just edited the post and uploaded two pics of her terrarium! Thanks for the feedback — I would’ve wanted to see that before we got Lucky, too!
Thank you! That’s a very cool habitat!
I’m so glad you adopted her and considered thoughtfully about which reptile to get.
Okay – my question is about the crickets. As someone who gets cave crickets in her basement (very common around here!), how do you get the crickets from the cricket keeper cage into Lucky’s terrarium? I can’t even imagine having to do that! And Lucky is certainly lucky to have such a loving home!
I definitely do NOT want to touch/handle the crickets and that’s where the cricket keeper cage is AMAZING. It has these long black tubes with traction inside them and the crickets really gravitate toward the tubes so you can remove them and hit the bottom of the tube and a cricket (or 5) will fly out into Lucky’s cage. It makes it sooo easy! And your basement crickets would be a treat for her — haha! The boys love catching “wild crickets” to feed her whenever we happen to see one in the garage!
Glad you highlighted the life expectancy. We have a box turtle that is older than I am. My husband (7 years older than me) got her when he was 3 in 1982. I don’t know how old she was then even, but she’s alive and well still and thankfully we all enjoy each other!
Ahhh we would’ve loved to get a turtle!! That was actually the first reptile on our radar but the life expectancy was a concern for us — I think it’s SO amazing you guys still have your husband’s childhood turtle!! They’re such cool animals!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this as I found it fun to learn about another type of animal to adopt 🙂 My girls would love a hamster, but my husband refuses to let a ‘rodent’ into the house. Perhaps I can sway them all into a reptile – although the whole cricket thing sounds like such a thing, lol. Regardless, I learned a lot! Great work, mom and dad!
I never thought I’d be into a lizard but Lucky has truly won over our whole family! From a care perspective, she’s been amazing and doesn’t require much work at all.
This is great information! Our oldest wants a reptile so badly. I may have missed it in your post, but do you guys have a plan for when you travel? This is probably my biggest hang-up- our dog is very low maintenance when we go out of town, but I worry about other types of pets. Can you find people to “watch” geckos? Or will you have family/friends stop by?
This is such a good question and was one of my concerns, too! We can easily leave Lucky for a weekend — we just make sure she has water, a heat light on (we leave her night heat lamp on when we travel, not her daytime one) and make sure there are enough crickets hopping around so she’ll be okay. Anything more than a Friday afternoon to a mid-Sunday departure, we’d want to have someone come over and feed her crickets and check on her water but it’s not something that needs to happen daily!
Interesting post…having two beardies and a leopard gecko myself . I would have to agree the gecko is much less work than my beardies. Sounds like Lucky is in good hands …and welcome to the world of reptiles …cheers
Ok you have convinced me that we need one of these for our kids!! Hopefully the hubs will be onboard once I tell him how easy it will be. Thanks for all the info!
We have a bearded dragon, you can buy a timer that will automatically shut off your day light and turn on the night one, and then swap them back over in the morning. Also, we were told to only feed as many crickets as they will eat at one time because they can bite if they are left in the tank. You are right about the size though, just when I think ours can’t grow anymore he does a shed and gets bigger, he’s probably about 18 inches long now!
We just got one last week and can’t keep crickets alive for longer than about 2 days! Ah! Any tips would be appreciated!
Do you have a reptile rescue recommendation local to clt? You’ve convinced me I can handle getting one for my own creature man for his upcoming 9th birthday. I definitely like the idea of knowing their temperament ahead of time.
Aw!! I’m so glad you’re considering the rescue route! This is the rescue I was looking at for a leopard gecko for our family before we found the one in Florida: https://bewildnc.org/ It’s based out of Durham so it would be a bit of a drive but I loved their descriptions of their reptiles.
Also, this place is local and FANTASTIC: http://www.coldbloodedandbizarre.com/ Definitely worth a visit as they are so knowledgeable and often have rescues available, too.
Grandson has a Leo that stays at our house. So basically I have a Leo.
Anyway noticed you didn’t list having a heating mat for Lucky. The mats warm up the floor. It is placed under the Leo’s flooring which gets warm then Leo lies its belly on the warmth. Overhead heat doesn’t enable them to heat their little bodies. Also they need a WARM side and a COOL side in the enclosure along with an area between that is not too cold and not hot. Just right! Ha! Double check on this but I don’t believe that the overnight needs to b kept on necessarily unless the room is cold. Again his heat will b coming from the floor.
We are fostering 2 leopard geckos, one which is blind or mostly blind (4 hermit crabs and a water turtle) for a month or so for my nephew’s family who is in the middle of a move. I have always loved exotic or different pets having had birds, rats, mice a box turtle that I had 22 years before she passed, hamsters, hermit crab, a hedgehog, fish and of course cats and dogs growing up and through my early adulthood. I do a lot of research when I take on something new and it was no different with these guys. I have a 14 year old son and we both have loved having the geckos so I decided to let my son get a leopard gecko. We have pretty much everything we need, and in a couple weeks will be getting the little critter. We also plan to attempt to raise crickets ourselves and started getting what we need for that set up. Where we live is a good 25 minutes in good weather away from pet stores that sell live crickets and all the experts say wild fed insects should not be fed because of parasites they could carry or pesticides they could ingest. Yes, I never knew how smelly crickets were, but we are going to try. We are excited to be getting a little one of our own and having the proper set up, (as my nephew really does not, and it kills me.) I enjoyed reading your adventure into becoming a reptile family.
Thanks, wow I wish I had the guts to get one for my boys… maybe one day! Two questions I’m hoping you might have time to answer but no worries if not (1) does Lucky roam free in your home? Has she ever tried to escape? And (2) for cleaning you mentioned poop, what about pee? 🙂 do reptiles not pee much or something? Stupid question probably haha.
Hello! Our family has a 1st time Leo too! My two boys love him. I am still learning and reading up on them, can you explain the lights that you have? The picture shows one lamp, so do you just switch the bulbs each night to the moon one? I’m afraid that ours will get too chilly at night. Currently we just keep a day lamp on and shut it off at night. We also have a heat pad on the outside of the glass. I noticed that he (Stormy) was laying up against the glass where it is, so I’m not sure if he was trying to get warm or not. I lo e your set up and lucky looks well taken care of! Thanks so much!
Hi! We have two lights, one with a day light and one with a night light, and just swap them out!
They need to hv constant heat underneath so they can place their bellies on it to keep body temp regulated. Look into buying a heat mat. It stays on all the time. Instructions will explain how to set it up. Daytime you DO need the UV light ( which acts like sunlight) that gives them Vit D3. Hope this helps. K
Hi you need to put heat mat under his flooring. They need to keep their bellies warm by lying on the warmth. Heating mat will come with temp probe. It will explain on the box how to set up.
You won’t need the overhead heating at night if using heat mat underneath. Hope this helps