Metabolic Bone Disease?

We bought a new gecko at the Lititz reptile show today, and unfortunatly, some of the breeders are not as honest as we'd like them to be. Ryan and I got a beautiful tangerine albino male, and when we got him home, he's dragging his right back leg and trying not to use it. We've seen him use it, but we've also seen him drag both. We talked to Shannan and she said it may be the start of MBD, but we'd like anyone elses opinion on it, and really..where to go from here. I already started to look up some information online, but I'd rather get some from people we trust a little more. ANY information will be helpful at this point! Thanks!


We think this may be something more recent because otherwise, he looked very healthy. He's pretty active, brightly colored and he weighs over 50 grams. We just took a video quicktime video of him. I compressed it quickly so the quality is just okay but 600kb is way better than 10.2mb.

Here's the link: http://www.ryanroth.com/mbd.mov

He pretty much seems to be having trouble from the hips back. He really doesn't want to use either of his back legs it seems now. Again any help and info is greatly appreciated. Thanks ahead of time.

but I will post a picture of our leo who has MBD if you look at his leg (will be on your right) where it bends, it is always going to be like that. The vet says we did all we could do for him.

possible impaction? has he went poo since you got him?

Everything helps right now, we're clueless.

We've read that the limbs appear rubbery...we haven't really noticed that. He was bought today, and there was poo already in his plastic container. When we bought him we did notice that he was dehydrated.. could that be causing this?

I would not think so. The way he was walking looked like a impaction, cause it seemed like he did not want to draw the legs near the body, because of possible pressure.

I'm not sure about that though. Maybe someone else could lend more knowledge and advice in this subject.

Well thanks for your 2 cents! We're keeping a very close eye on him and will do so until he's better.

It really burns me up that none of this was mentioned at the show today when we were debating on him.

Ryan, from the video, it looks to me like he is marking his new territory. I may be wrong. The video doesn't show a good shot of his legs. I would like to see a good pic of his rear legs.Can't tell if there is any extra bends or if he is actually favoring. I think he might just be dragging his junk to mark the place?

I'd agree with Jeremy, looks like your new little bruiser is telling everyone there's a new "kid" on the block. My males do that quite often, especially after I clean out their enviornments.

I agree with Jeremy and Ragnew also. When my males do this I call it "dragging their junk". To me it just looks like he's marking his territory.
Good luck.

Well, I've yet to really see him on all fours walking normally. There's definitely something goofy with his back legs at times. I don't know how to explain it, but geckos are pretty flexible and can bend in half and pull a 180 and go the other direction easily. Many times when he does this, he actually steps on one of his back legs with his front ones. That doesn't seem quite right. Also, his balance is terrible. We had him out earlier and noticed he was acting odd and floppy. He's very tipsy in the back, and he was pretty bad when I was checking his weight. I can't image he would be so persistent to have goofy legs all day, and the rub his nutters everywhere for a good 3-4 hours, haha. I'm sure it could happen though, I've just never seen it before.

Well...good news, I just opened up his bin to mist it like crazy for him since he was very dehydrated when we got him. He came out of his hut interested, and ON ALL FOURS woohoo! He's still really a little floppy in the back, but it seems as though he has control over where he wants to go. I'm really excited to see him walking close to normal.

I guess maybe we was weak do to the lack or water, or maybe he was banged up in transit. I'm not really sure, but he seems to be definitely better than he was. Also, he doesn't have any deformities or anything, we were just worried this may be the start of something. I don't know really what happens with MBD, or how it starts.

Thanks for all of your help. Hopefully all is well with him in the next few days. I'll keep you posted. I think it just came to us as a huge shock, to buy him and then later find him gimpy. You can't really handle leos at a show since the breeders don't know where you hands have been. Also, you can't really see them move around in their small bins, and most are normally sleeping. Well, see how he does though, I'm off to get a photo or 2 to post...