Sad loss

[Paul112]

I found my Male Tokay Gecko on the bottom of my tank on friday. He seems to have passed away during the day, althought I'm not entirely sure why. He seemed to be having trouble gripping on the night, but I assumed he was shedding. This is the male which I hope has bred with my female to produce the single clutch of eggs I recently posted about, hopefully he has left a legacy behind him.

I bought him back in November, and he was still relatively young, so he certainly didn't die from old age. He was always skinny, and never thrived, but I was trying to get him to turn around. The thing which concerns me most is the fact he seemed to have some blood around his mouth when I found him. He and my female have no injuries externally, so I think something must have killed him internally. I could not get his mouth open however after he died, so I have no clue what exactly it was.

Does anyone have any clue what this might have been?

On another note, it's been 5 days since I found the eggs and they still look white and good, no dents or yellowing. When can I definately tell if they're fertile? They were laid on the glass, so I plan to "candle" them with a bright light behind them soon, are there any safety issues with this, and how far into the incubation are they likely to show anthing?

This was my first attempt at breeding any reptile, and Tokays really took my heart. It's been a sad few days, I hope the eggs provide me with something that I can remember my first breeding male by.

Paul

 

[Saille]

Awwww, Sorry to hear the sad news, I seem to be hearing a lot of this lately.
Do you know if your Tokay was wild caught? If he was, I am guessing he died of a parasite load and stress.

Are you going to have a necropsy done? If so, refrigerate the body, don't freeze it, and hopefully your vet can tell you what the cause of death was.
Good luck with the eggs and the female, if you get a chance, I would bring a fecal in from her to make sure she's clean and parasite-free.

Again, sorry for your loss.

 

[Paul112]

I am pretty sure both of them are WC, although the male was a lot younger and a lot less familiar with captivity when I got him. I am from the UK and there are very few CB Tokays over here, which is why I wanted to establish a breeding pair and produce some CB offspring. I have been keeping reptiles for nearly 11 years, and I wanted to do something helpful for the hobby, aswell as try my hand at breeding something.

I have already buried him unfortunately, so a necropsy is not possible. I would get my female checked by the vet if I wasn't so worried about her going off her food. She seems already pretty stressed with the whole egg laying ordeal, and I don't think she'll be very calm if I remove her from the eggs she's guarding. It's one of those cases where I think the stress of a vet visit would harm her more.

Thankyou for the reponse Saille,
Paul

 

[Saille]

Hey, you may be able to not stress the girl out at all, what I do with new WC's is, I keep them on paper towel substrate and as soon as I find a fresh poo, I baggie it, date it and put it in the fridge then get it straight to the vet for a parasite check. That way, you won't have to bring the animal in and stress her out with transporting and such.
You can call the vet and ask them if they'll just run the fecal test for you, and hey, if she's clean, no worries, and if she does have something, then you can work out the best way to treat her with the least stress involved, with the vet.
The great thing about Tokays (and in my experience, White Lineds) is, they'll gape pretty easily so they're super easy to give meds to.

Anyway, hope your girly is going to be fine, and I sure do hope you can get the eggs to hatch, it'd be great to have established CBB Tokays in the UK.
Good luck!