favrielle
New member
I am posting this thread reluctantly, as I'm a relative newbie to the online herp community and don't have much of a reptuation. I am also quite aware that a "Bad Guy" thread should not be posted lightly. On the other hand, I'm fairly certain this situation qualifies.
On 1/18/2014, I attended the Hutchinson Repticon with my family and purchased (for $60 cash) a young TSF leopard gecko from Amanda Webb of The Pet Gecko during the first couple hours of the show (VIP tickets, we were there soon after they opened). I took the gecko home, established her in an empty rack, and let her settle in. I also named her Bella, short for Bellatrix.
Although she seemed fine at the show and for the first couple of days, within that first week she began showing signs of illness -- runny, very smelly stools and regurgitation of food items. Eventually, she also regurgitated her shed skin as well. Some days she seemed to do better than others, but she clearly wasn't in perfect health.
I was already planning to have my entire collection tested by PCR for Cryptosporidium through a company named AvianBiotech/Animal Genetics, Inc. and had ordered test kits prior to attending Repticon. So when the test kits arrived, and with Bella showing what seemed to be classic Crypto symptoms, I collected a sample from her to be sent of wth those from the rest of my collection. All the samples were stored in the refrigerator until shipping, which occurred Monday, 1/27/2014 by USPS Priority Mail.
In the meantime, I kept Amanda updated by Facebook message through her personal and/or business pages. I also kept a close eye on Bella, providing extra nutrition and fluids by syringe as needed. If she took a turn for the worse, I intended to get her in to see my veterinarian ASAP, but until then I wanted to avoid stressing her out unnecessarily while waiting for the test results.
Avian Biotech received the samples Thursday 1/30/2014 and began processing them, and I was able to access online results as of Monday, 2/3/2014. Hard copies of the results were also mailed to me, and arrived the following week.
Thirteen of the PCR tests came back negative for Cryptosporidium. One, however, was positive -- the sample collected from Bella. I double-checked the result with the lab by phone and requested they send me a PDF copy so I could provide it to Amanda Webb as proof of the test result. I then contacted her with an update through both her personal and business pages and asked her how she would like to proceed. What followed was a less-than-satisfactory response, the details of which I will leave to the screenshots of our entire interaction since the beginning, including non-related discussion that I included simply for the sake of completeness and to avoid any appearance of hiding something/leaving something out. There are MANY screenshots, plus other supporting documents as well, so please bear with me as I upload them in further posts. There is also more to the story that will come out as I post interactions.
On 1/18/2014, I attended the Hutchinson Repticon with my family and purchased (for $60 cash) a young TSF leopard gecko from Amanda Webb of The Pet Gecko during the first couple hours of the show (VIP tickets, we were there soon after they opened). I took the gecko home, established her in an empty rack, and let her settle in. I also named her Bella, short for Bellatrix.
Although she seemed fine at the show and for the first couple of days, within that first week she began showing signs of illness -- runny, very smelly stools and regurgitation of food items. Eventually, she also regurgitated her shed skin as well. Some days she seemed to do better than others, but she clearly wasn't in perfect health.
I was already planning to have my entire collection tested by PCR for Cryptosporidium through a company named AvianBiotech/Animal Genetics, Inc. and had ordered test kits prior to attending Repticon. So when the test kits arrived, and with Bella showing what seemed to be classic Crypto symptoms, I collected a sample from her to be sent of wth those from the rest of my collection. All the samples were stored in the refrigerator until shipping, which occurred Monday, 1/27/2014 by USPS Priority Mail.
In the meantime, I kept Amanda updated by Facebook message through her personal and/or business pages. I also kept a close eye on Bella, providing extra nutrition and fluids by syringe as needed. If she took a turn for the worse, I intended to get her in to see my veterinarian ASAP, but until then I wanted to avoid stressing her out unnecessarily while waiting for the test results.
Avian Biotech received the samples Thursday 1/30/2014 and began processing them, and I was able to access online results as of Monday, 2/3/2014. Hard copies of the results were also mailed to me, and arrived the following week.
Thirteen of the PCR tests came back negative for Cryptosporidium. One, however, was positive -- the sample collected from Bella. I double-checked the result with the lab by phone and requested they send me a PDF copy so I could provide it to Amanda Webb as proof of the test result. I then contacted her with an update through both her personal and business pages and asked her how she would like to proceed. What followed was a less-than-satisfactory response, the details of which I will leave to the screenshots of our entire interaction since the beginning, including non-related discussion that I included simply for the sake of completeness and to avoid any appearance of hiding something/leaving something out. There are MANY screenshots, plus other supporting documents as well, so please bear with me as I upload them in further posts. There is also more to the story that will come out as I post interactions.
