How to Make a Maze for a Gecko

Environmental enrichment is the process of providing interesting, entertaining experiences to pets. Although reptiles are often viewed as rather unintelligent and boring, geckos are highly intelligent animals who can greatly benefit from environmental enrichment. Geckos who receive ample entertainment that mimics their natural environment are healthier, friendlier and less likely to develop compulsive behaviors such as anorexia and skin chewing. A maze is an excellent way to provide your gecko with enrichment and you can construct it using materials you probably already have on hand.

  1. Maze Benefits

    • Mazes mimic many of the obstacles geckos experience in the wild. Captive geckos don't have to actively hunt for their food. Instead, owners typically place food directly into a bowl in the cage. While this makes eating easy, it can also lead to boredom. Feeding your gecko using a maze allows her to actively hunt for her food, solve problems and navigate her environment. Scatter food throughout the maze and increase the difficulty of the maze as your gecko begins to learn how to navigate it.

    Designing the Maze

    • Long wooden blocks, thick envelopes and DVD cases turned on their sides are excellent materials with which to make a maze. The items you use should be tall enough that your gecko cannot easily "cheat" by climbing over them. The maze corridors should be as wide as your gecko is long to ensure ample room to navigate turns; geckos are not particularly agile animals. Line up the maze and ensure that the materials you're using are stable. Avoid using heavy books or unstable items that could fall on your gecko. When you first create the maze, it's best to design just one passageway that leads to food. Geckos can navigate mazes with several corridors with practice, but cannot navigate trapdoors or other highly complex maze structures. Geckos hunt primarily by sight, so there should be a food item at the end of each corridor that your gecko can see to encourage him to keep going. After several days, when your gecko has mastered the maze, you can begin creating side corridors and making the maze more complex.

    Stocking the Maze

    • The food you place in the maze gives your gecko an incentive to complete the maze. Avoid using prey items such as crickets and grasshoppers that can easily jump out of the maze. Instead, place meal worms, wax worms or silk worms throughout the maze. There should be a worm visible to your gecko from the maze start point and then several more scattered throughout the maze. Place two or three worms at the end of the maze to reward your gecko for completing the challenge.

    Other Puzzles

    • Mazes require supervision to ensure that your gecko does not knock down walls, and a maze can take up substantial space in a cage. If you'd like to provide a permanent fixture for environmental enrichment, consider using a feeding maze. These items, which are available at many pet stores, store food and have a small hole at the top for food to crawl out. This mimics the natural environment of the gecko and encourages the gecko to be alert for food. You can also make a feeding maze at home. Simply turn a feeding dish upside down and place food underneath it. Then drill a hole large enough for food to crawl out.