Ladybug, Rescue 193

I took in another leopard gecko who was left behind by a young adult owner. She had shed stuck on her toes and face. Her water dish was black. She's obviously not used to being held, but she's been well fed.

Another Enigma gecko, rescue 178

I have a baby leopard gecko now with *severe* Enigma syndrome. Because he's so young and gets stressed so easily, he is SPASTIC! He does the alligator death roll and can't walk straight or move forward. Poor thing.

Enigma syndrome is a neurological disorder caused by sloppy breeding practices. It's a genetic defect that can't be fixed or changed. The best we can do for him is get him into a stable environment where he feels secure and to limit his stress. He'll be going to my favorite leopard gecko foster home this week. She took my other Enigma leopard and has done great work with her.

Between baby leopard geckos struggling from stick tail disease, failure to thrive, and Enigma syndrome, it's becoming VERY hard to buy one from a national pet store chain that will actually survive to adulthood. :(

Click HERE to read a previous post about Enigma Syndrome.

Sweet Baby Fry, rescue 176

Last night, some Idiot Owners showed up at the pet store where my friend works with their very sickly leopard gecko. They threatened to dump the sad lizard in the parking lot if the pet store employees didn't take him.

(um, yeah, don't get me started on that little manipulation....)

My friend took him and brought him to me.

Fry now is the WORST case of Metabolic Bone Disease I have ever seen in a leopard gecko.

Gaping mouth, dried out tongue, dislocated jaw, three layers of shed on his tail, a rubber skull, bent & blackened feet, a kinked spine.... Oh, and this baby is supposedly two years old.

I gave him 1 cc of saline and put him in a warm box for the night.

He did make it through the night, but this morning he looked worse than before. I felt 99.5% sure that euthanasia was the kindest thing to do. I took him to my favorite vet (who happened to be working today) for a quick check right after they opened. At first, he hesitated. Yes, Fry was bad, but there was some hope---- until he saw the jaw fracture.

There's ZERO hope for a lizard with a broken jaw and MBD. :(

I held Fry as he died. He will be buried in my flower garden.

Sweet Jinzo

After several weeks of force feeding, poor little Jinzo's body just gave out on him. I knew last night before I went to bed that he wasn't likely to be alive this morning. And he wasn't.

He was the first leopard gecko I've ever had die on me. :( 

The Rescue Year of the Gecko! or Rescuing 3 more Leopard Geckos (#'s 174, 175,176)

I've taken in more leopard geckos in the last 3 months than I have in the previous 4 and a half years. It's crazy! I got 3 more yesterday.

Good thing they fit in 10 gallon tanks and 10 gallon tanks are cheap and easy to store!

These 3 are actually way healthier than I thought they would be. That was a relief.

#1-

#2-

#3-

I'm pretty sure it's two boys and one girl. They are pretty feisty and tried to eat me as I moved them around yesterday. They have all eaten for me too.

Last night, one of them redecorated their tank with the moss from their moist hide. I think it was #2.

I'm hoping these guys will be able to be adopted out within a week.

Today's Vet Visit

Today was a BIG trip to the vet. I took Kiwi the chameleon, Noel, Tiger, and the female gecko who had been chomped on by her mate.

Kiwi passed her exam with flying colors! Her bones are strong, her casque is firm, and she gained 4 grams. She is ready to move on with life. Woo hoo! Even Dr Folland said she had an amazing transformation. :) I didn't take a single pic of her. I mostly left her in her ice cream bucket because she hates being held & looked at.

Noel has doubled his weight since I took him to the vet last and tripled his weight since I rescued him. He's such a handsome boy. He's already getting ready to shed again.

Noel decided to poop while we were waiting for the vet. OH BOY! It smelled SO bad! I let them do a fecal test on it and it turns out that Noel is loaded with coccidia. We'll be treating him for that. He has an eyelid defect that makes his eye get really goopy and I'll give him two different eye drops for a week to see if that helps.

The female gecko actually looks good and acts good. Hopefully she'll start eating on her own soon. No pics of her.

Tiger did NOT like his vet visit at all. Poor guy is very miserable & sickly. His breathing is labored, his mouth is yellowing, his eyes are swollen, his nose is dripping, and he has severe diarrhea. We have exhausted almost all possibilities with him except for the $500 CT scan. Even that is not likely to show us anything that can be actually fixed. My daughter adopted him after her beloved beardie, Lizzie, died and she's loved on him ever since.

After Dr Folland examined him thoroughly, Tiger looked terrible. He folded his arms across his chest and kept his eyes shut tightly. :(

By the time we left, Tiger was looking less deathly.

It's hard to know what to do with him. He had a really bad beginning and was practically dead when I rescued him. This is what he looked like: 

Sometimes it's just not possible to ultimately overcome a bad beginning. I'm not sure what we will be able to do with Tiger next. I'm honestly going to have to pray about it and talk to my husband and daughter about it. $500 is a lot for a test that is not likely to show us something we can fix. 

Another hard part of rescue. 

Jinzo & Jazz, leopard geckos

These two leopard geckos were surrendered to me last week after they had stopped eating and stopped being active. They had lost a lot of weight too. I'm currently force feeding them Critical Care to get some extra calories and nutrition in them. The female shed last night and the male ate a superworm on his own. I'm hoping they'll start gaining weight again quickly.

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

Doing my Research on Leopard Geckos and Enigma Syndrome

It's good to have friends who are more specialized in other reptiles because then I can ask them for information. I sent pics & the videos of the female leopard gecko to my friend Chris who sent it to his friend who is an expert on Leos. She wrote back and said that the female definitely has Enigma syndrome and, on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being mild and 5 being severe), my girl has a level 4.



It's a neurological disorder caused by genetic abnormalities that show up in specialty morphs called the "Enigma" morph. So remember how I said that the specialty breeding to get Flame's colors and translucence caused his neurological disorder? Like a form of Inbreeding? Same exact thing with Enigma syndrome.

Here's an Excellent Article on it.  From that article:

What is ES?

Enigma Syndrome (ES) is a neurological disorder that affects the balance and cognition of leopard geckos.  The severity of this genetic mutation varies from relatively mild symptoms, such as: ‘star gazing’, head tilting, and occasional circling to debilitating effects such as: seizures, ‘death rolls’, and incessant circling in place (similar to diagnostic symptoms in autistic individuals).   Affected individuals with the same mutation will manifest different degrees of severity of this disorder, because of environmental factors and their individual genotype.

Environmental stressors such as bunking with an aggressive cage-mate, being vacuumed up by a distracted breeder, or just the normal rigors of shipping can be enough trauma to activate this syndrome.  Enigma Syndrome is a misnomer, as all morphs are susceptible to this disorder; however, it is more prevalent in the Enigma morph.  Balance disorders seen in non-enigma morphs may, in fact, be one and the same disorder.

Stress activates the neurological disorder which is why the female is worse when I'm cleaning her wounds and such. It can't be fixed. She'll always have it and we can only lessen it by keeping her in a calm, stress-free environment.

UGH. It reminds me of something I've said many times-- just because you CAN breed certain morphs doesn't mean you SHOULD!

I have a "Fancy" bearded dragon morph that has constant tremors. I have a "Specialty" morph leopard gecko that has serious balance disorders. I have a purebred Maltese dog that has terrible hips and knees because of her specific genes. Genetic specificity (I made that up just now and don't know if it's an actual thing) can create a whole host of problems. It's like diving in the shallow end of the gene pool. :(

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.

Update on Gumby

Gumby is my poor little Leopard Gecko with severe MBD. His bones were RUBBER when we first rescued him. It was tragic-- and 100% preventable!

Gumby just shed two days ago and did it all on his own! That's fantastic news for him. He was able to pull off all the shed off his toes too except one toe I helped him with. His bones are getting really strong too and he's eating much better.

Pictures don't seem to really show how distorted Gumby's body is now. He has several spinal lumps on his back and he walks on his elbows. His wrists and ankles are folded flat against his arms. He's very pathetic looking. He does get around though and he's fast when he wants to get away from me! Gumby will just always be a very special Leo.

Sweet Pokey

I made the hard decision at the vet to let Pokey be free from his pain and suffering. Poor little guy. The vet found a hard mass in his belly which also appeared to be filled with blood. :( Pokey can't eat or move much on his own and only weighed in at 7 grams.

There was not much hope for him. So we let him go.

I've had the opportunity to watch multiple euthanasias of sickly reptiles in the last four years and I have *never* seen one die as quickly as Pokey did. Within a second or two of being injected, he was gone. Poor thing was SO ready to go.

Sorry baby. I wish we could have saved you. Had we gotten you a month ago, we would have had more hope. But we had to wait for your owner to realize they couldn't get $30 for you. :( By then it was too late to undo what had been done.

Tragic.

Gumby & Pokey, rescues 165 & 166

In the last two weeks, I've helped rescue two different leopard geckos from two different owners that both have *severe* MBD (Metabolic Bone Disease). These guys' bones are rubber. It is tragic.

Gumby's owner was selling him even though he knew that the Leo had MBD. The owner just shrugged it off. The poor Leo walks on his elbows! and the owner said it was fine. Ugh.

He's got stuck shed on several of his toes that we've been working on removing. Several other toes have already fallen off from stuck shed. 

Gumby can be really fast at running-- even when he's using his elbows and army crawling.

Pokey's owner is a Leo breeder who blamed his poor arms on an injury caused by other leopard geckos in his clutch. Um, no. The other Leos may have hurt him but he was easily hurt because his bones are like mostly cooked spaghetti!

This poor guy walks on his elbows too. Both of their wrists are so bent and fragile that they can't even walk on them.

These two guys look like twins. :( But they came from two different people in two different cities. Two different people who should have known better and didn't fix it. Instead they both tried to pawn off their "healthy" geckos on unsuspecting owners. 

Both these boys (I don't actually know if they are boys yet) are in separate tanks. They are both getting calcium syrup and gut loaded & coated insects. They are both headed to the vet tomorrow or Thursday for a checkup.