Craiglist deal

[crazytanak]

just perusing my local craigslist. Someone is selling off their entire collection of crested geckos. 7 males, 17 females, 17 eggs/hatchlings, plus all the supplies they have for them. 4500. i wish i had room for a collection that big otherwise id prob jump on that.

[samanthajane13]

Who wouldn't???

If I had the money, I'd jump on it-if it were local!!

Room is not an issue for me.

[crazytanak]

well money is of course an issue here too. sadly they wont sell just a few, you have to buy the whole group, which is a little unreasonable i think. A friend of mine said hed buy a gecko from me, but only if it had a tail. WTF. I told him most of them loose their tails by age 5 anyway. Im not sure i will sell to him, at least not till he does a lot of research first.

[zuk450]

I have a friend who hates cresties without tails too  . I was showing him some pics of AC's breeders (to show him just how awsome a crestie can look, but they were mostly tailless) and he said something along the lines of "I wouldnt buy one from him, none of them have tails.he must  treat them like $#!T." all I could do was laugh a bit and inform him just how far off base he was haha. he still doesnt like the ones without tails though.   

I use to hate the tought of any of my geckos losing their tails (none have so far) but the frog butts have grown on my over the past few years. I dont think id go out of my way to buy a tail less gecko, but it isnt a deal breaker for me anymore.

[samanthajane13]

Hey-the first things I look at are the health, structure, morph and color of the gecko.

Tails are the least of my worries,unless the animal has Floppy Tail Syndrome,wavy tail possibly indicating early MBD, or hip issues.

I've bought several frog-butts over the years, and they have been outstanding additions to my colony.

[crazytanak]

3 of mine are frog butts. i think they are cute.

I will admit i kinda had the same thoughts about Anthony at first. I didnt think he treated them bad, but it seemed odd to me how so many had no tails. It was obvious they were otherwise healthy and well fed. Then after more research i found out it isnt really that big of a deal. Geckos will lose their tails for any reason, and for no reason. Then i read a thread on some forum from some woman conplaining about a gecko she got from Anthony. She was flipping out and complaining over nothing, and he was more then patient with her (if it had been that would have gone another way). After I saw how he handled that situation I realized he was a good seller.

Now I did see a seller at a show who had about 20 males for sale, all of them had Floppy tails. Frog butts dont bother me anymore, but skinny geckos, visible injuries and the gecko is still housed with others, and floppy tails make me think twice about a seller.

[inkling13]

I just got my first frogbutt a couple of weeks ago and I just love her.  As far as I can tell the only affect its had on her is with jumping, she tends to overshoot her target, lol.  My geckos with tails, when jumping, tend to forget to let go with their tail and thus land short of their targets.  It still makes me laugh whenever the new frogbutt girl jumps and seem so surprised that she went a lot further than she expected!   

Personally I can see the plus side of no tail in that it prevents the gecko from getting floppy tail.  Granted if your not careful they can still get the calcium deficiency that causes floppy tail but they wont get the pelvis tilt which can lead to egg-bounding.  So in my eyes, the fact that most breeding females lose their tails is a good thing.

[crazytanak]

One of mine was pretty reliant on his tail, then he lost it. But im glad he lost it young, like 8 grams max. It helped him adjust to not having it. If he had been older with as much as he used that thing it would have taken him weeks to adjust.

my current breeding pair and 2 hatchlings are the only ones with tails

[samanthajane13]

Floppy Tail Syndrome can also happen to a gecko that spends most of it's time hanging upside-down from the sides of it's enclosure.

The sheer weight of the tail vs. the force of gravity pull the tail away from the side of the enclosure, bending it to the characteristic arch that we see then they hang.

That's why it's very important to provide some sort of elevated ledge for the geckos to sleep on.  They are arboreal lizards, and instinct tells them to sleep high off the ground to avoid predators.

My geckos each have a suction-cupped soap dish in their tanks, and I very rarely find them hanging.

As soon as I started giving them the soap dishes, I noticed a dramatic crop in Floppy Tail, and also in tail dropping.

Of course, there are exceptions.  I still have hatclhlings and juvies who spook easily, and insist on throwing their tails...just because they're idiots.

[crazytanak]

Yeah, but if someone has 20+ geckos with floppy tail that tells me they arent offering enough climbing things and hides in the cage. it makes me wonder what else the owner was slacking on. One or 2 with floppy tail isnt a big deal, but when you have a hard time finding a gecko who doesnt have it thats a problem.

one of mine pretty much always sleeps on the glass, despite the fact there are plenty of things in there for her to climb on and in, but she likes the glass for some reason.