[hexentanz]

Hi All,

I have had this little one since March of this year. She lives in the tank with my D. leucomelas. There is no UVB lamp provided to them. My dusting regimen is twice weekly with Korvimin ZVT+Reptile and once weekly with Herpetal Mineral + D3. Temps range around 22-29C depending on the time of the year. They are all provided with fruitflies, springtails and micro crickets. Occasionally I will also feed with bean beetles and field sweepings. I also place a small dish of crushed up cuttlefish bone in the vivarium for my mourning gecko and provide her with Repashy CGD every other week.

Two days ago I observed her shedding and she looked totally fine. Last night I found her in the vivarium with her mouth slightly opened. When I looked closer i noticed that the left side of her mouth looks swollened. When she tries to lick her left eye she naturally fails, right side licking is fine. I also observed her feeding earlier in the day yesterday and she looked totally fine.

I caught her and put her in a tank with UVB light in case it is a case of MBD. Though if it is MBD I am very confused. :/

Pardon the funky way she is holding herself, she can straighten out but was apparently frightened by the flash of the camera.

I should also note there appears to be no visible deformities in her back, only the mouth looks odd, walking is also normal.

We have an appointment at the vet for her later today.

[Elizabeth Freer]

Maureen ~

Is your calcium supplement phosphorous-free with D3? I like the Rep-Cal brand.

Could she have gotten into a squabble with her two cagemates? How are the other two?

Keep GU posted about what your vet thinks.

[hexentanz]

Originally Posted by Elizabeth Freer

Maureen ~

Is your calcium supplement phosphorous-free with D3? I like the Rep-Cal brand.

Could she have gotten into a squabble with her two cagemates? How are the other two?

Keep GU posted about what your vet thinks.

Hi Elizabeth,

It says on the back label Phosphor 0,03%. I have yet to find anything here which has strictly 0%, the Herpetal has been the lowest I could find and the most recommended by breeders/vets here.

I actually have her separate from the other two as I wanted to test whether or not the old saying of two or more mourning geckos makes for better egg production or not. :P The other two are as healthy as can be and receive the same diet, so I am really confused.

Tested this morning whether or not she could still eat and she still can, so yeah really confused.

Hopefully the vet will have good news for me.

[Elizabeth Freer]

The big Hamm show is coming up on September 11. Don't know whether you could order the Rep-Cal brand online...pink label.

MBD is a possibility. For a definitive diagnosis perhaps you could get an x-ray to check out the state of her bones. What type of substrate do you use? Feeding dish? Could have got the injury from diving for a cricket.

[hexentanz]

Yeah, when it comes to supplements i'd rather not order them online. I have lost track how many times i tried that and got sent stuff that was expired, or looked like it had sat in direct sunlight for weeks.

Luckily when I ordered the Repashy it was through someone I knew to be keeping their supplements in top condition.

Will have a look at the Terraristika for the Rep-Cal.

I am just really puzzled because I have friends who are also using the same diets with their Mourning geckos and they are fine.

Having an X-Ray done is part of my plan while at the vet.

Substrate is peat plates ( http://static.letsbuyit.com/filer/im...-15486166.jpeg ) it expands a pinch when wet but does not break apart easily. Backwalls are a soft black cork, only things hard in the tank she could whack her mouth on are the glass, cocoa huts and fernroot trunk.

[hexentanz]

Well we are back from the vet with some very sad news.

My precious little Clicker indeed has MBD. I am absolutely gutted.

The vet ran fecal and urine tests on her. Sadly she also has flagellates. :/

Xrays showed all other bones to be ok.

The vet was also a little puzzled by her condition.

I was sent home with the gecko and with a liquid calcium +d3 gel which I am supposed to administer one drop of daily. I am also to keep her in a tank with a UVB lamp overhead, which I have already setup for her.

I'm seriously starting to rethink the advice of them being kept with dart frogs being an ok thing to do is actually not okay. I am going to setup a separate tank for the other two (one with UVB light) once I have fecals done on them and the frogs they are in with.

[Ingo]

Herpetal mineral plus D3 is a mineral supplement focussing on calcium in well bioavalable forms and vitamine D3 to help in Calcium absorption. Trace elements are present as well. I prefer it over Rep Cal (complex mixtures of natural ingredients, nort very well controlled, cooked, contains lots of uneccessary stuff and thus concentration of the real goodies is relatively low) and I do highly recommend it. I use it since 4 years with very good success.
Of course, I am biased, since I developped it. But I did not do that to make money with it -that I leave to the company which asked me to provide the recipe- but rather to have and make the right stuff available.
If a nocturnal animal under the supplementation conditions described still developed MDB, few reasons can be envisioned:
A) Permanent stress ....possible. I do not think, the frogs ar responsible, since from my experiences such combinations are quite unlikely to stress the gecko. However, conspecific incompatibilities do occur also in this species and IMHO can be a likely source for permanent stress in this case.
B) Metabolic stress caused by parasite infection. This also can be the case here.
C) Misdiagnosis (not alle vets are really experienced in this area). From the -not too significant pics- I more got the impression that a bacterial infection may have started to spread and attack the jaw bone. This can easily happen, if a part of a feeder insect injures the mucosa and does not leave that place quickly.
If no large abscess develops, the symptomes can look quite similar to MBD but always are very local, whereas in bone breaking MBD, mineralisation of bones in many areas of the body is affected. This you see on xray and also often feel by carefully trying to bend the leg bones.
If all other bones are OK, I have a strong tendency to believe in this cause for the current conditions. Did the vet make a smear test from the mucosa in the affected area.
D) Strong overdosing of D3 (can cause similar smptoms as MDB since it triggers calcium mobilization from bones)....if you are using Korvimin anyhow, you might better switch to Herpetal Mienral without D3. But also in this case, demineralisation of more of the larger bones should be visible and also calcium deposits around arteria and heart might be visible on xray.

Last not least, with the curretn supplementation, any additional calcium dosing should not help in managing the problem. Did you discuss your supplementation scheme with the vet? Did he know about the ingredients?
Who was it by the way? Someone with significant experiences in herp treatment?


So far my 2 cts.

Ingo

[hexentanz]

Originally Posted by Ingo

Herpetal mineral plus D3 is a mineral supplement focussing on calcium in well bioavalable forms and vitamine D3 to help in Calcium absorption. Trace elements are present as well. I prefer it over Rep Cal (complex mixtures of natural ingredients, nort very well controlled, cooked, contains lots of uneccessary stuff and thus concentration of the real goodies is relatively low) and I do highly recommend it. I use it since 4 years with very good success.
Of course, I am biased, since I developped it. But I did not do that to make money with it -that I leave to the company which asked me to provide the recipe- but rather to have and make the right stuff available.
If a nocturnal animal under the supplementation conditions described still developed MDB, few reasons can be envisioned:
A) Permanent stress ....possible. I do not think, the frogs ar responsible, since from my experiences such combinations are quite unlikely to stress the gecko. However, conspecific incompatibilities do occur also in this species and IMHO can be a likely source for permanent stress in this case.
B) Metabolic stress caused by parasite infection. This also can be the case here.
C) Misdiagnosis (not alle vets are really experienced in this area). From the -not too significant pics- I more got the impression that a bacterial infection may have started to spread and attack the jaw bone. This can easily happen, if a part of a feeder insect injures the mucosa and does not leave that place quickly.
If no large abscess develops, the symptomes can look quite similar to MBD but always are very local, whereas in bone breaking MBD, mineralisation of bones in many areas of the body is affected. This you see on xray and also often feel by carefully trying to bend the leg bones.
If all other bones are OK, I have a strong tendency to believe in this cause for the current conditions. Did the vet make a smear test from the mucosa in the affected area.
D) Strong overdosing of D3 (can cause similar smptoms as MDB since it triggers calcium mobilization from bones)....if you are using Korvimin anyhow, you might better switch to Herpetal Mienral without D3. But also in this case, demineralisation of more of the larger bones should be visible and also calcium deposits around arteria and heart might be visible on xray.

Last not least, with the curretn supplementation, any additional calcium dosing should not help in managing the problem. Did you discuss your supplementation scheme with the vet? Did he know about the ingredients?
Who was it by the way? Someone with significant experiences in herp treatment?


So far my 2 cts.

Ingo

Ingo,

I do not think it is bacterial. If it is bacterial I am a little scared at the type since the signs were not present on the gecko in the morning of the 16th and she looked to be in 100% condition, the same when I saw her later in the afternoon and I was even able to get a good look at her mouth. It was not until well in the evening before the lights were to go out she had this problem with her jaw.

All things were discussed with the vet, feeding, supplementing, enclosure, etc.

The vet I saw is one here in my city of Münster and she comes quite highly recommended when it comes to herps.

Another friend I have is using Herpetal Complete-T and Mineral + D3 would this too be wrong? It was my previous combo, but I switched to the Korvimin at advice of a few breeders.

[Elizabeth Freer]

Maureen ~

What is the brand of the liquid calcium and the d3 gel? What is the treatment for her flagellates?

Just want to elaborate on my recommendation of Rep-Cal. As far as I know that company makes two products: pink-labeled Phosphorous-free calcium with D3 and blue-labeled Herptivite with Beta Carotene. It is the calcium product I have recommended. The only ingredients are calcium carbonate and vitamin D3. I recommend a light dusting of the calcium powder.

[Ingo]

oops, yes, thats true.
Herpetal Mineral plus D 3 is quite similar to this recipe. However, in addition to calcium carbonate it also contains calcium citrate, which is much more bioavalable and also a balanced formula of other minerals as I said before.
Check Herpetal.de for the exact composition.

With respect to Hexentanz´question: I do use the Herpetal complete T/Mineral+D3 mixture in a 2:1 ratio for most of my herps and have very good experiences with this. The only problem is that depending on the dusting regime, it is possible to overdose D3 for the more D3 sensitive species with this combo. This mostly applies to chameleons, MHDs and Phelsuma, but it is always better to be careful and not overdo it. We also reduced the D3 content recently for the same reason.
If animals are exposed to ample UVB, I recommend to use the mineral product without D3.
But I mainly post this, because I have one question, which is of significant interest to me:
Can you elaborate on why your friends recommended Korvimin over Herpetal complete T?
Korvimin contains more phosphorous and has a ridiculously high amount of vitamin A (can be dangerous, since it influences shedding intervals, Korvimin originally was made for birds, which do need that much). Also, Herpetal complete contains a balanced amount of iodine, since in europe, iodine deficiency has proven to often become a problem for especially anoles and Phelsumas. The amoint of iodine in Korvimine has proven to be not sufficient to prevent this.
Other differences to Korvimin are minor (more Ca, more meaningful mineral salt formulations, aminoacid content, B vitamine group details...), but elaborated for each case.
I thus do not understand, why Korvimin is recommended over Herpetal complete. I agree that Korvimin is an expedient and proven supplement, no doubt. But it has some flaws and I mainly developped Herpetal compelte T to get rid of these and thus personally see it as its successor.
Hence I am greatly interested in being informed about reasonable arguments pro Korvimin and contra Herpetal complete. I am also very willing to accept and implement comprehensable suggestions for improvement of any Herpetal recipe.
The higher amount of D3 in Korvimin btw I do se as an disadvantage, since it increases the risk of overdosing.
To not get me wrong: The Korvimin/Herpetal Mineral combo will work out fine for many/most cases.

Best

Ingo

P.S.: It is virtually impossible to produce a mineral mixture which is absolutely devoid of phosphorous at a reasonable price. 0,03% -as confirmed by analytics- is the lowest value we were able to obtain. The composition of Herpetal is controlled by regular analytics and the manufacturing is performed under GMP conditions.