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Strange Leo Story

Missymonkey

Missymonkey

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I have had the weirdest day,...

Last night my friend who is the local herp supplier and my fiance confiscated a pair of leusitic leos from a guy who owes my friend/the supplier a lot of money for animals. The geckos were in horendous condition. Terribly thin looking, I can see the hips and all the bones through the skin, their tails are unbelieveably thin, it just brings tears to my eyes. So I put them in my warm reptile room with a shallow bowl of water and vitamin dusted crickets and a few meal worms, I said a little prayer and went to bed.

This morning I wake up go to my classes and all that, I come home around 3ish, and sit at my computer which is five feet from the front door. Around 4 my fiance comes home and we headed over to my mothers for an hour, we then return to our apartment. Nothing is amiss or strange looking. One of our tenants stopped by and paid his rent, we closed the door grabbed our coats from the bedroom and were about to head out, that's when my fiance found a little juvenile normal colored gecko on our front door floor mat. He was thin and barely breathing. His tail is a little lumpy and he's missing a toe. He wasn't moving at all. I took him placed him in a tupperware shoe box with a piece of cardboard down and a very shallow dish of water.

She/He's moving a little bit, walking just enough to get to the water and back under the cardboard, doesn't show much interest in eating (the other two have aten today thank god) I'm just so saddened by all these little guys condition, I'm hoping that with a little TLC I can bring everyone around back to healthy fattness...

I feel like a mini-orphanage for mistreated and unloved geckos...

I just wish I knew where the last one came from...
 
Here's a pic of one of the two we rescued
 

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so the pics are fuzzy, it's a cheap camera

and here is our mysterious doormat gecko, I've named her Anne for now, (like orphan Anne)
 

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Awwwww, I just read this post. How are the geckos doing? I feel like I run an orphanage for geckos too. Currently, I have 5 rescue leopards in my home. I have had good luck in the past using a bit of pedialyte to get them rehydrated. Mixing it with a bit of chicken or turkey babyfood, and feeding through a syringe can help a gecko that is not eating. I have pulled a couple through that were that skinny but I have lost a few that were that bad too. :( Good Luck with these guys.
 
Some good news, the two patternless ones have been eating, at least trying to, they're having troubles catching the whole cricket, they tend to jsut get a leg or two and then the cricket limps off and dies, however my normal phase one isn't eating at all, I am very concerned and don't want to have to force feed because of all the stress that's involved (for the gecko and me, I tend to be a wuss and rather scared with forceing food)

keep your fingers crossed you guys, and say a few prayers, I really want these guys to live, but it's looking a little grim:(
 
I would suggest that you try wax worms to feed them. Most leopard geckos find them hard to resist and they tend to put the bulk on a gecko real quick. The last batch of them we got came from wormman.com.

Make sure you give them a damp area (like in a tupperware container with a hole cut in the top) so they can shed their skins more easily. One sure sign of people not doing this will be dried skin on the toes. You'll find that most of them will spend the majority of their time in the damp box.

Good luck!
 
some bad news some good

So one of the leusistic geckos died, I didn't really expect this as they were both very alert and eating crickets. I'm really bummed about it, not just it dieing but also all the suffering it had to go through. However I did get the normal colored to eat a mealworm, I pretty much shoved it down her throat. She didn't like the idea of eating it and made faces all night at me, but at least she has that little extra bit of food in her. I have been feeding them babyfood every other night ever since I got them. They make the cutest faces when they are all messy with babyfood.

I have high hopes for the two that remain, but still I am worried.

I am still looking for sugguestions, I am soaking them in pedialyte by putting it in their little rubbermaid tub hids that they love to sit in.

thanks
 
In the past when I have had an underweight juvenile dragon, I would take a 3 ml syringe, put about a ml of pedialyte along with two mls of organic baby food. I would then shake the syringe to mix the two, and then feed. I foudn my dragons didn't like the taste of pedialyte and this seemed to be a good way to get them to willingly take it.
 
My geckos don't seem to like the babyfood I am feeding them, I mean how often do you hear of a herd of wild geckos taking down a cow, or a turkey? It's too bad they don't have cricket flavored baby food....

I've been mixing mine also with pedialyte, it seems to help, because the babyfood tends to get all gummy in their mouths
 
The normal colored leo died yesterday. When I first saw her on my doormat, I thought to moyself, "she's come here to die". I wasn't going to let her die, but I'm not God.

I'm heart broken, she looked alive with her sweet little skinny face. So I have one skinny gecko left. This one is extremly alert, eats rather well, and I'm almost 100% positive that she'll survive. But who knows.

*sigh* it's sad
 
sorry for your loss

So sorry to hear about your loss. I just read your post and feel bad for you. You have a big heart and you tried your best. I've gone through this myself when someone sold me 2 sick African Fat tails. She knowingly sent them sick. When I contacted her as soon as i got them and told her how sick they looked and how their tails were like sticks shes said.... oh i know... they just quit eating 2 weeks ago.... OH i was soooo angry!!!!
I didint want to ship them back because I knew they would die if I did that and how could I send them back to someone who obviously neglected them.
As soon as I put them in their new home they ate like there was no tomorrow. Unfortunately after a month they both just quit eating again and died.
I took them to the vet and the vet did a fecal test and said it was cryipto. Thank GOD i kept them in another room and never let them near my other lizards. I could have lost my entire collection. I have at least 14 now.
I emailed her right away and told her what the vet said and that they had died and she never heard of crypto before and had no idea what it was.
What annoyed me was that she said in our first emails that she was very familiar with Gecko's and snakes and had shipped many times before and had these animals a long time.
I only wish my computer didnt crash and cause me to loose every email correspondence I had saved up about her or the BOI would have had a new thread. Boy was I p.o.ed!!! She said... yeah i know that they hadn't eaten for 2 weeks... they just quit eating.....gerrrrr and she sent them anyway!!!!!
 
quick little update

After the loss of the two skinny geckos I was heart broken but found new determination to get the last one healthy. I have been force feeding her/him every other night a few meal worms. This is going well and I have gotten over my "I don't like to touch creepy bugs" thing (well at least with meal worms, as far as any other bug that's a different story) I also put a few crickets in with her so that if the mood strikes her she has the opportunity. So far she ate one, and kept the others to keep her company as they crawl all over her and they all seem to be good friends.

She is putting weight on and her tail is getting thicker she still has a bad spine ridge showing but it's slowly going away, her little legs are thin but her face is filling out better. She lost the tip of two of her toes on her back legs due to poor sheds before I got her, but Rich sugguested I have a moist mossy tub for her and that improved her toes 100% and all the stuck sheds on her toes have cleared up.

In the mean time another friend of mine just got sick of his leos and he pretty much dumped them on me. I was glad to take them, they are all in good condition but dang I now have a leo plantation in my closet. He gave me seven geckos, two of them are males and they are brutes. Howly cow! I named them Goliath and Beast because they are gargantuan. And I just got a little teeny albino baby from the LPS (really good price!) so I have my hands full of geckos :) WEird, I never expected to have so many geckos, and word is getting out around here that my closet is the place for unwanted reptiles, good? bad? I dunno, just happy to share my love *sigh*

crazy world, and my wedding is only 5 days away!!! (I had a dream last night that I was walking down the isle with a little line of geckos following behind me in little tuxedos and tu-tus with little flowers in their mouths, you marry me you marry my posse of geckos!!!)
 
Not to bring up old news

The last of my rescued geckos died yesterday. I had been hand feeding her since I got her back in Feb./March. I had such high hopes for her as she was actually filling out. However last week she started thinning again and her skull was showing quite well. I upped the babyfood and pedialyte feedings and got her to eat a mealworm. But I found her practically drowing in her shallow water dish. She was so weak.

The sucky part is that she was a blizzard, and I had put so much time into her. That and I had really gotten attached to her. I spent so much time holding her and getting her to eat. Her personality was peaking out over the summer.

I normally don't get so broken up over my lizards but this really bites. She had such a rough life I wanted her to die a fat happy old gecko not a thin little shell of a creature. :(
 
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