First post: Exit Kurhah, Nashira and Polaris

Breeding leopard geckos is something I thought I loved.

I bought my first leopard geckos several years ago - a pair of Patternless "girls" who turned out to be, two for two, boys. I originally wanted them so that I could breed a particularly nice looking morph - a "Banana Blizzard" - to sell for lots of money so I could buy a blue and gold macaw. I planned to get one male banana blizzard, a female, plus two female blizzards and two female patternless. Alya and Albali came along and spoiled all that - being both boys, I rather had to jump-start into building new enclosures (you can't house males together long term - they'll fight and kill each other) and wound up picking a group of females that didn't go with my original breeding plans at all.

Never buy reptiles who haven't absolutely fallen in love with OR who don't produce what you want - if you've got a breeding goal in mind, pick breeders who will get you where you mean to go; if you just want to buy animals you love the look of, don't be surprised if you get a lot of little normal-looking babies... which are VERY hard to sell on.

I eventually settled on three boys (Alya, Albali and a male bought with a specific breeding goal in mind, Blizzard het albino Kurhah) and ten girls. Of the thirteen we had at the beginning of last year, over a third of them were geckos we hatched ourselves - Keid (2004), Chara (2005), Maybe, Polaris and Wednesday (all 2006). The others - Celaeno (Albino brooch-lizard and peopleconverter), Lesuth (the tubby stroppy one), Nashira (the albino psychotic eatbeast), Shuja (An accidental blizzard), Sadalbari (The only one who looks like what they do in the wild) ... I had my favourites. Nashira - Nash for short - I gave the name I was going to call my macaw. Getting them I realised I'd never want NOT to have reptiles - that no matter what else happens there will always be at least one scaly in my house.

In the last year I've lost four geckos in my care - my favourite two girls, Celaeno and Keid, died in 2007 when they became egg bound with three-egg clutches (as did my friend's girl Alacantra - who just died yesterday) and Maybe, when Shuja decided to bite one of her feet off. Losing Alacantra was the last straw. I'm ... disillusioned with the idea of breeding geckos. I don't want to go and open a cage, look at a girl and go ask Onissarle to check and see if she's as dead as I think she is. I don't think I can take the feeling of "I chose to breed this animal and that choice has killed her" any more. Thinking about Celaeno - and it's been a year since she died - still hurts. That little gecko put her hand on my heart and I miss her.

I know, I know, where there's livestock there's dead stock. Something to keep in mind - don't breed a female unless you're willing to take the risk with her life. If you're not willing to lose her, don't breed her.

Which is why I sold Kurhah, Nashira and Polaris. I didn't want to see them go... but I can't take keeping a breeding group I don't dare breed any more. They've gone to someone who knows what they're doing; my remaining six leopard geckos will be pets now.

Maybe someday I'll decide I want to breed leos again.