[Sweetcorn]

Hoping to get some advice for my sikorae. Yesterday morning I saw that he had shed during the night but there was still some retained shed on the back and legs. I transfered him into a tub with wet moss and cork branch and gave a good spray. I had him in there for most of the day and did manage to gently remove some of the shed from his back but not all of it. At the same time I noticed a slight curling upwards of the edges of his tail. In the evening I popped him back into his exo. His behaviour hasn't changed and he is still actively hunting and eating.

As he is a baby I've had him in an exo nano. He has 10% uv which is raised higher than the top of the exo. I spray twice a day and humidity stays in the 80s - 90s.

He's fed on crickets, locusts, roaches, fruit flies, wax moths but to be honest only appears interested in the crickets. I alternate dusting between calcium and nekton multi vits. He has a water dish available but haven't seen him use it and assume he's drinking when I spray at night.

We've had a recently sunny spell for the last couple of days and the temps did get to 22/23c so on advice from a friend I've set up a fan with a bag of ice cubes and that has kept the temps down today to 19/20c and I intend to get a airconditioner as a more permanent solution.

Any help would be really appreciated on what best to do for him and I hope I've provided enough information on how I've been caring for him.

[Graham_s]

You may have stressed him out a fair bit by trying to remove the remaining shed.
Whats his setup like? Any photos?
If he is still eating and active, that's a good sign.
Is the shed still stuck on his tail? If it is then that may explain the tail curling.
Roughly how big is he?

[Sweetcorn]

I did do a search on here first and the advice I saw was to gently remove. But if it's not the case then I won't do that in future.

There does appear to be shed on the tail from what I can see.

This is a pic of his set up.



And him when I got him a month ago to show his size.

[Graham_s]

I am not saying that you shouldn't remove the shed, but you need to bear in mind that these geckos can easily die from stress, so you need to know where to draw the line.

I would say that you could also do with making the vivarium a bit busier.
Live plants and substrate like eco earth would also be a good improvement.
They need high humiditiy and a vivarium like this cannot sustain the humidity, so will need a lot of extra spraying, which can cause other problems.

The vivarium's inability to sustain high humidity would explain why he had the bad shed. Also it would make sense that it was caused by humidity issues because you said his behaviour was unaffected, so is unlikely to have been a bad shed as a result of him being ill.

[Sweetcorn]

Thanks for the advice Graham. I have been very careful since getting him not to handle at all and only go in to clean, feed and spray.

Hubby is bringing some eco earth from work for me tonight so will put that in and add some more things to the exo. I'm thinking it might be worth upgrading to a slightly larger exo so I can fit some live plants in too. Do you think a move now would be too stressful?

I watched him last night and he was as active as normal and was hunting shortly after I put the crickets in.

Thanks again for your help.

[Graham_s]

I wasn't suggesting that you have handled him too much, but leaving him in a tub all day to help his shed could have caused a fair bit of stress.

Uroplatus will always use as much space as you provide them with, but at the moment, he isn't too big for that vivarium, so it may be better to keep him in there until he settles in a bit better. Some plants would be great in the vivarium. Dracaena spp. usually work very well and from my experience are very hard to kill!!
Don't underestimate the love that sikorae have for rough-barked sticks and branches. Try to arrange them in a variety of ways - e.g. some vertical, some diagonally, etc. They generally seem to prefer sleeping vertically though.

[Sweetcorn]

Thanks again I've got the eco earth in now and some more branches. Will try to find some plants small enough for in there this week and hopefully he'll be alot happier/healthier now with the changes made.

[Graham_s]

Good to hear. Can you get us a photo of the updated setup?

[Sweetcorn]

Just grabbed a quick pic for you. I've also just ordered a Dracaena Deremensis from Dartfrog which should arrive tomorrow. Will probably need to remove one of the thicker branches to fit it in though.

[Graham_s]

Thanks for the new photo, it's looking much better! The Dracaena and perhaps a few more smaller twig-like sticks for climbing will make it into a really nice little vivarium
Great stuff!