About Our Geckos

Long Established Bloodlines
This species has been my primary focus and my profession since the early-mid 2000's, when I was a python breeder dabbling with other species, and I came across this gecko species that I quickly became obsessed with. Every gecko we sell hatched here in our facility and is descended from our own bloodlines, which have been developed in-house with founding stock acquired in the early-mid 2000's. Several of our projects and lineages are now nearing their 20th generation and have been outcrossed strategically to the point of serving as self-sustaining breeding populations - meaning they're large and diverse enough, genetically, to outcross from within and still be 6-8 generations removed from any common ancestors. Due to the increased risk of disease outbreak in a larger collection, I stopped allowing new geckos into my collection in 2006. Since then, only 7 crested geckos have been brought into my collection - either geckos that were wild caught (new genetic material) or geckos with a genetic mutation that I wanted (two genes). Everything you see here, with the exception of genes that didn't pop up in my collection, has been developed in-house since 2006.

Signature Size & Structure
Our geckos are known to have solid structure and to regularly attain adult weights in the 70-80 gram range, with many reaching 90-95 grams by 5 years old. That's being fed only twice per week, often while housed with 3 other adults, which is how our standard breeding group is set up. We've attained these larger sizes in our colony by doing two things - selecting for appearance (color, pattern, size and structure) while outcrossing with every generation - try to make geckos that look the same, but do it with as much genetic variation as possible.

My Journey with Reptiles

Like most anyone who does this for a living, I have been catching and keeping reptiles for most of my life. I have caught every frog, toad and snake I could possibly get my hands on, going back as early as I can remember - and I'm talking since preschool age. I couldn't even begin to tell you what it is about reptiles and amphibians, but I was born completely magnetized to them. 

Keeping reptiles at home started at age 7 with a couple green anoles that I got as a birthday present at the age of seven, followed shortly after by a house gecko, then native frog species as I accumulated more tanks to keep them in - down in the sub-basement of my childhood home.  I finally got the OK to have a couple snakes by 8th grade, and I had raised up a fairly big Burmese python from a hatchling by my senior year of high school.  Burmese morphs had been making waves in the reptile hobby, so this is when the idea of doing this for a living first took hold.  In 1998, about 18 months after graduating high school, I was forced to sell off the few reptiles I had. I was going to college, working full-time and still living at home...and no matter how good my pitch, I couldn't get the OK to start a reptile business in the basement. 

In 2001, a while after I had moved out, I finally began putting together my existing reptile collection, with the blessing of some really patient and supportive roommates. I started with pythons of various species and I made up for lost time by putting together a pretty legit collection rather quickly. It wasn't long before the idea of doing this for a living started swirling around in my head again. It just didn't sound like a very doable idea, at least not quite yet...but I was still interested.

Brief History of ACReptiles.com  (2004 - Present)

I got my first crested geckos in late 2002, after reading an article about them. At the time, my main focus was on pythons. The idea of crested geckos being a gecko that doesn't require live insects is initially what grabbed my attention.  I started buying quite a few crested geckos and eventually began breeding them in 2003 - my first crested gecko hatched on January 4, 2004.  By then, I had absolutely fallen in love with the species for a variety of reasons, and I registered the domain name (acreptiles.com) on February 18, 2004.   

Ironically, in October of 2004, my employer of 5 years closed the facility I worked at, offering me a job for better money, but in South Dakota.  I wasn't interested in moving out of state, so I opted for a small severance package.  Having seen how quickly the popularity of crested geckos was growing, I made the decision to take a shot at breeding reptiles full-time.  Before too long, my focus on pythons gave way to the idea of specializing in designer crested geckos.  I went on to breed pythons for another 13-14 years, but developed a sever allergy to rodents, which caused severe asthma at times. I eventually sent my ball python collection to my friend, Jake Milbradt, effectively merging our collections.  Snakes are now being bred at his facility in Wichita and we produce a little over 100 clutches per year. I still have some carpet pythons, blood pythons and boa constrictors as pets.