On Vacation

I suppose looking on Craig's List while "on vacation" wasn't the best idea I had, but I'm only on vacation-- I'm not dead! ;)

While on Craig's List, I found two ads that need help. Which means I need help with the money. I still have $150 in my Rescue account but these will cost more than that. Plus then I'll need to get them set up into tanks, etc. So if you can, please help! If not, no worries!

First beardie that I will be picking up on Friday for $60 but with no supplies. Yes, that's a full grown adult dragon in a 10 gallon tank.

Then there is this ad for a Uromastyx with two bonus beardies. This one will be $150 for everything.

I always hesitate to post pics in advance because sometimes in the rescue world, people undercut you and try to rescue the critters before you can get there. I know, it's lame & frustrating.

These pick ups are already arranged, but I am just trying to gather some extra money to pay both fees and have extra for getting them into appropriate set ups.

If you can donate, please click HERE.

And I promise to stop searching on Craig's List for the remainder of my vacation time....

Geckoes, rescues 171 & 172

I'm super lame. I can't even think of names for these two. But I want to count them and make a blog record of them. :)

The female hasn't been doing that great. She did shed, but it ripped off all the scabs off her feet and made them bleed again. Plus, she stopped eating on her own. She has a very severe case of Enigma syndrome which is a neurological disorder that gives her a head tilt, makes her alligator death roll when she's stressed, and prevents her from tracking her food well.

The male is doing great. He needed some help shedding last week, but is great now. Very active and loves to eat. 

These guys were a mated pair that attacked each other one day. They were covered with bite marks and blood when their owner dumped them off at the pet store where my rescue sister works.

Geckos Update

The male gecko is shedding today! Did you know that leopard geckos eat their shed skin? It's actually a good thing for them to do. Crazy, huh?

Here he is in his moist hide.  Yes, it's a sour cream container with damp sphagnum moss in it.

The female is getting ready to shed too. 

Both are eating well and fairly active. The female was spinning in her tank this morning-- a sign of her Enigma syndrome. It's not contagious but it is aggravated by stress. My guess is that her shedding skin is irritating some of her wounds. I've had to stop soaking her because it pulled the scabs off her feet and then she'd bleed continually. 

Overalll, they are both doing great. They are in the sunshine in my room on "Gccko Row."

Honestly, I've never been a big fan of leopard geckos. I prefer the personalities of beardies more than geckos. I plan to keep these three for now and let them all get healthy. Plus, I need to come up with a name for the male & female. I will one day-- when I'm inspired. Or when I stop long enough to think about it. ;) 

Switching It Up or "I Don't Even Know What to Do Next!"

I've had Delta & Raptor for almost a month now. They are force fed almost daily and offered greens and insects too. I've preemptively dewormed them and given them extra supplements.

It hasn't made a bit of difference.

Raptor is still 5 grams. This little guy devours greens too! And poops daily!

Delta is 11 grams. She's being a pill and not eating.

I've consulted with my vet on them and tried just about everything. I don't know what else to do to get them to start growing!

Today, I decided to move my 3 gecko tanks together into my bedroom so the geckos can have more natural lighting. There are pieces of paper between the 3 tanks so they can't see each other, by the way.

I figured I might as well move the babies too and see if that helped. I put them on the top shelf that gets the most morning sunshine. Of course, not today since it's supposed to rain and snow here all week. But my bedroom is south facing and gets a lot more light than the north facing craft room they were in.

I upgraded both tanks to make them less of a "sick" tank. I got rid of the towels on the bottom for substrate and put in paper towels. Then I gave them both a branch to climb on (not pictured). For now, they have to share a UVB light until I get another one in the mail. I also put a piece of paper between the ends of their tanks so they can't see each other either.

I don't know what else to try or add to help them so I'll just keep plugging along with this set up and hope they start improving.

Yes, I now have 8 tanks in my room. Yes, my husband is very patient! ;) And let's just pretend my bed is made. :D

Update on the Leopard Geckos

Today I decided to only clean the leopard geckos from yesterday once so I could minimize their stress. I started today with the female since she takes more time.

Before I picked her up and started cleaning her wounds, her head had no tilt to it at all. She looked totally normal. SUCH a great sign!

Her normal behavior did NOT last long.

She arched her head back and thrashed around. I know it hurts her, but it must be done. Poor thing. In the bath, she pretended to an alligator and did the "Alligator Death Roll."

I got her wounds cleaned and recoated with antibiotic cream. Then I gave her pain meds and attempted to feed her Critical Care.

Nope. She wasn't having that.

I figured I'd messed with her enough so I put her back in her tank. Her two back feet are so raw that they bled the whole time I had her out.

The male was much, much easier. He's less feisty and has fewer problems. He's also bigger and healthier than the female (no surprise with that).

He got a quick coat of antibiotic cream and his tail soaked in Betadyne solution. I pulled off a few extra pieces of stuck shed too. He looks like he could use a good shed overall to help his skin look better.

You can see that he has NO toes on his back feet. They are rather misshapen and lumpy. In fact, he has only nubs on his front feet too. I think he has only one or two toenails on any of his feet. This fact alone tells me they had negligent care before. You can't leave stuck shed on gecko toes because it cuts off the circulation and kills the toes.

I noticed this morning that my MBD gecko, Gumby, had shed last night, but didn't quite get the shed off his arms. So once I cleaned my hands good from taking care of these two, I pulled Gumby out and soaked off the shed on his toes. One of his toenails popped right off with the shed too.


After we got off his shed, Gumby was happy to take a nice picture for me.

He's such a handsome boy even if he walks on his elbows, has a lump in his back, and has twisted legs. He's a nice boy. ;)

P.S. I'm still thinking of names for the other two. After 180+ rescues, names are hard to come up with sometimes!

Emergency Rescue- two bleeding Leopard Geckos

This afternoon, just as I was in the middle of making homemade bread, I got a message from my rescue sister, Marybeth: "Call me." Beth is like me-- she'd much rather text or IM me than actually get on the phone and talk. It must be an emergency.

It was.

Two bleeding Leopard geckos were dropped off at her work. They are a mated pair and had laid several clutches. The owner was shocked to discover both of them bleeding and attacking each other (forgive me while I roll my eyes. How can you breed lizards and not know that it is often violent and mean?!? And that you can't leave them together?!? Anyways....) The owner didn't know what to do with them, did not want to take to them to a vet, and left them at the pet store. The pet store employees took them to Beth who called me.

I got them home and realized that ALL of my 10 gallon tanks are in use! That's never actually happened to me before. I had to leave the geckos in their boxes and run to the pet store where I picked up two 10 gallon tanks and a hide. My husband was nice enough to clean them out for me while I doctored the geckos.

The male has the fewest cuts. He is missing a LOT of toe tips from bad sheds. I managed to work a couple more stuck shed pieces off and they came off with more pieces of dead toes. I'm going to have to work on him some more later. I started with him first and was anxious to get to the female.

The majority of his wounds are on his hands and feet. I treated them with a Betadyne solution and then coated them with a light coat of Silvadene antibiotic cream. He's got a little hard lump on his chin too that we'll have to decide how to treat.

The female is a MESS! She's in bad shape and bled the most. She has two nasty bite wounds to her head along with a severe head tilt.

I sent the pic to my vet and asked if it could be pain related or neurological. He isn't sure yet but gave me instructions on how to treat her for the next two days (including pain meds). You can tell the poor baby is in a LOT of pain. Anytime you get near her head, she starts thrashing and rolling her head.

Her back foot is in bad shape too. At first I used a Q-tip soaked with Betadyne to treat her wounds but eventually just put her in the bath to soak. I got all of her stuck shed off and she lost two toes. :(

The top of her tail looks like ground beef from all the bite marks. :( She may decide to drop it instead of trying to heal it. I tried to help clean it and treat it as best as I could.

Both geckos are now in a good set up with clean water and a hide. The male is eating already and the female had pain meds. I'm too tired to decide what to name them tonight. They *were* a mated pair. I'll wait until tomorrow to let them know that their relationship is over. I don't think either one will complain too much about it. :D

On one side of my kitchen, I had all my vet supplies set out:

On the other side, I had my bread baking:

That pretty much sums up my life! ;) Reptiles on one hand, motherhood & life on the other. I hadn't intended to pick up bleeding geckos today, but that's the thing about rescue-- it's never predictable.

The End of the Emergency Rescues

Two weeks ago tomorrow, I took in 3 sickly monitors. I'm happy to report they are all out of my house. The last one left tonight. 

Phew. 

I'm back down to no extra tanks everywhere. It's very nice.