New Blizzard Leo for Xmas and some work ahead

[sammer021486]

While visiting my girl friend's family I stopped in at a local pet store to have a look around and found a leopard gecko that was on the bad side and looked close to death.  I returned the next day with my girl friend whose family is good friends with the pet store owner and managed to secure the gecko for an exchange.  The owner did offer it to me for $40CND, but when he found out that I was breeding my own leopard geckos back home asked if I would make an exchange for a hatchling.  I agreed to the offer based on the fact that all the other geckos in the store were healthy, properly setup in the tanks and that the owner admitted that the gecko was ill (had removed it from the tank with the other blizzards and in its own) and did not know how to care for it, being sick.  The other side of the offer is that if the gecko does not make it I do not owe anything.

Returning to the store with my girl friend the blizzard did not look as bad as it did the previous day and when I got it home it showed a lot of fight.  While trying to remove the shed stuck over its eye it tried to attack the Q-tip a couple of times.  I can tell by the tips of the toes that the gecko has lost, that they were not lost recently.  I have a feeling that it will lose one more toe tip,  but hope that I will be able to save the tip of the toe. 

I was able to get the gecko to eat some crickets from my hand and other than the stuck shed, being under weight and slightly dehydrated.  I have very high hopes for the gecko's safe return to a healthy life.  I will post pictures of the gecko later, when I have some one to give me a hand getting different angle shots of the gecko.

[sammer021486]

This is Fate. 




You can see the hip bones in this picture

[KatiesCresteds]

Poor little guy. Hope everything goes well with him!

[sammer021486]

Fate is doing pretty good so far.  I was going to make a gecko slurry, but I think that the gecko is fine.  I have not taken a close look, but judging from the lack of distinct preanal pores I am going to say female.  This is only my second leopard gecko that I have/am raising from a young age, so sexing at a younger age is still not a strong point for me. 

Today Fate took the second excrement since getting her and half of it was sand (I have her on paper towel, she was on sand at the pet store).  The first excrement was just the urates and a little 4 mm x 1 mm greenish-yellow thing beside the urate.  I did notice too that there was a blue/green colour to part of the excrement today.  I am not sure if it has something to do with the sand or 

I do have some more pictures of her and I am not sure if it is just her internal organs or something more, because I do not remember my other blizzard's internal organs standing out so much.

I am still working on getting the shed off the tips of her toes, but it still seems stuck good even after doing warm water baths.  I am hoping that it will still come off.

Fate has a good appetite and has been eating well since getting her.



Here is the best clear shot I could get of her underside tonight.  I can get a better one tomorrow if need be.

[shi12396]

I have a lil' female the some coloring, she too has that darkness to her abdominal area. I thought it was just her organs as well....should you find out diffrently, please share with me!!! Also, does anyone have any advice on how to get her to eat...she is emaciated, she is a rescue and was eating well up till a few days ago and now seems very listless. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, I am getting very worried.
Thanx

[KatiesCresteds]

When they are young, you can typically see the organs and such pretty well through their stomachs, especially lighter colored ones.

A good appetite boost is pedyalite (unflavored) which you can get at walmart in the baby section. Mix it with the water in the tank, and soak the gecko in warm water with some of the ped. mixed in. Is she defecating alright? Was she ever kept on a particle substrate? Could be impaction. Or any number of other things, of course.

[sammer021486]

When they are young, you can typically see the organs and such pretty well through their stomachs, especially lighter colored ones.

A good appetite boost is pedyalite (unflavored) which you can get at walmart in the baby section. Mix it with the water in the tank, and soak the gecko in warm water with some of the ped. mixed in.

Her appetite is great, she is eating very well.  She is eating a mix of crickets and meal worms.  Her water is supplemented with Exo-terra's calcium supplement which also removes chlorine and chloramines.

Is she defecating alright? Was she ever kept on a particle substrate? Could be impaction. Or any number of other things, of course.

Her poop yesterday was more than half sand.  It was like a rock core sample in a sense.  The first part was sand and the rest was regular poop. 
She was kept on white Zoomed sand.



I have not been able to dust her food with vitamins and calcium powder since the powders are still at my parents place where my sister has been looking after my other 6 geckos during the holiday break for me.

[KatiesCresteds]

lol sorry...that was really for shi12396.

[sammer021486]

lol sorry...that was really for shi12396.

Ok, never hurts to reply back though just to be sure,lol.

I see less of it now, but I was seeing very white spots right where her intestines are, so I am figuring on it being ingested sand.  If you look close in the picture where I am holding her in my hand, just under the dark spot you will see a small round white area, that is whiter than the rest of the skin colour. 

[shi12396]

Thank you Katie....sorry to hickjack your thread!!!
Glad your gecko seems to be doing better!

[KatiesCresteds]

Yeah, never hurts to reply! lol
Yeah, I see the white area.Hopefully she'll pass all that sand soon. Good luck!

No problem, shi12396. Good luck with your gecko!

[shi12396]

I'm gonna try the pedilyte...thank you!!
I'll let you know how it goes.

[sammer021486]

Fate is doing great.  Had a little over eating incident which ended up in the expulsion of about 6 meal worms, but other than that the progress is going good.

There is still some shed stuck to the toes that I can not get off, but at least it is on the very tips and will not cause any loss of toe parts.

[KatiesCresteds]

Awesome!

[sammer021486]

Fate is shedding tonight so hopefully all the old shed I could not get off of her toes will be gone with this shed.  I am actually surprised that she is still eating while shedding.  My other two leopards stop when they are getting ready to shed.  But my female did eat while she was shedding as a juvie, so I shouldn't be too surprised.

I'll keep the posts updated