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.

Another New Substrate

The biggest symptom of Adenovirus is diarrhea which means frequent cleanings of the tanks. Some of my guys are popping multiple times a day, and I've been blowing though paper towels quickly. 

I decided it was time for a substrate change. At my local home improvement store, I bought a roll of linoleum and cut it into tank size pieces. Today I'll buy a club warehouse size box of flushable moist wipes to use to wipe up the poop. That will save me tissues too since I flush all the beardie & tortoise poop. 

For my two 55 gallon tanks, I used 4 tiles on the bottom. I tried, but couldn't find tiles that would fit in the bottoms of my many 40 gallon tanks without cutting edges. 

Hopefully a few well-places paper towels will give the babies something to burrow in and an absorbant material for the really runny poop. 

I've used so many different substrates-- ReptiCarpet, tile, AstroTurf, paper towels, fleece-backed vinyl, shelf liner, and now linoleum. There's no one right substrate; use whatever works for you. Just AVOID sand and crushed walnut shell. 

Upgrades

I finally found two more 20 gallon tanks and got the 2 "twin" beardies into bigger tanks. Until my UVB order arrives, we're sharing UVB lights. 

The tiny baby is still in a 10. 

All of the 4 babies have eaten, pooped, and drank. They are all active and alert. I should be able to start adopting them out next week. 

My bedroom is packed now. 9 tanks total. 

Still no names. I call them: the tiny baby, the twins, Lil Bit, and the big one. ;) I'll figure out names soon. 

Tank Sale

This is where (and when) I get most of my tanks. 

PetCo's $1/gallon tank sale. I buy their 40 gallon tanks for $40 plus tax. Great price. 

How I set up UVB bulbs in my tanks

It seems I never have enough UVB bulbs to go with all the tanks in my house. For many months, I just used the bulbs and set ups that came to me with donated tanks. I finally feel like I have enough resources and enough knowledge to buy & use really good UVB bulbs. 

This is what I use. 

For my light fixtures, I buy the 18 inch under-cabinet fluorescent lights at Walmart for $9 each. I pop the plastic covers off and take out the regular fluorescent bulb. 

I buy ZooMed Reptisun 10.0 18 inch UVB bulbs from my awesome (sorta) local pet store RockStar Pets. You can also buy them on Amazon or any other pet supply store for $22 to $45. They are good for a year at the most. They fit right into the under-cabinet base. 

The back of the light base has holes where you can hang them on screws/nails, but I took these flower pot hooks and bent them into holders. These are only a buck at Walmart. 

Then I hang the lights (without the covers) off the back of the tanks so the beardies get max UVB exposure. 

I don't have lids on my beardie tanks so I can keep these hanging off the back without a problem. My rescue iguana Sancho keeps trying to escape so I had to put a lid on his tank, but I put the lid over the hooks. 

UVB works best if it is not filtered through a screen (either metal or mesh). There are coil UVB bulbs and I've used these before for my healthier beardies. For babies and sicklies, I use the long bulbs. There's a lot of research on the web about what type of UVB is best. If I had unlimited funds in rescue, I'd probably do mercury vapor bulbs (that give both heat & UVB) for my tanks. Since there's no such thing as "unlimited rescue funds," I have found this system to work well for me. I can get a brand new UVB light for under $40. 

Substrates-- what I use and why I recommend it

There is a lot of online info about what substrate to put in your beardie tank and there are quite a few options: calcium based sand, crushed walnut shells, paper towels, newspapers, slate, etc. At the beginning of the year, my reptile vet (Dr Scott Echols) told me to get single strand astroturf from Home Depot to use. BEST decision I ever made-- too bad he didn't tell me two weeks before when I spent over $40 buying sand for beardie tanks....

Freshly changed astroturf-- look how clean!

So here's what I do. I keep only 40 gallon tanks (36 inches long by 18 inches wide) and I have (or try to) TWO pieces of astroturf per tank. When the beardies poop, I grab a tissue, pick up the poop, and flush it. After a week, I take my stack of clean astroturf mats and swap out the old ones for the new ones. The new ones go outside where I sun-bleach them and hose them down. Once they drip dry (and get a second sun bleaching), I roll them up and stick them in my supplies box until next time.

My dirty pieces before I hose them down

When I adopt out a beardie with a tank, I always send two pieces of astroturf. My Home Depot sells two sizes of astroturf: 12 ft and 6 ft. I stick with the 6 ft. There are two choices in the 6 ft: one with a black, more flexible back and one with a white, hard back. I always buy the black back. If you want to be creative you can buy green astroturf, blue astroturf, or tan astroturf. I always stick with green (I'm boring that way).

On Monday I bought 3 pieces of 18 inch astroturf which will cut down to 6 pieces to use. It cost me $11.80 total with tax or just under $2 per tank. You can't buy any other substrate that cheaply!

I even use it in my tortoise tanks to make clean up easier. My next astroturf purchase will be a 48 inch piece that I cut into 4 pieces to use in my two 4 ft long tortoise tanks.