leopard rehabilitation project

[J.P.]

hi all! just sharing my new pet project.

i got this nicely colored leo 2 days ago. i got it almost for free due to its condition. and although i knew at once that it had problems, i was so sorry for it and so in love with the color that i still decided to buy it.

i think it's a sunglow, but could also be an aptor based on the photos i
have seen(the old owner is clueless regarding the gentetics and actually thought it's only an shtct:yahoo. it's 6 months old, a bit over 6 inches, and a whopping 22 grams! ouch, my little 4 month old is already past 30 grams.

i have a suspicion that it is female due to the absence of "balls", but i'm not 100% sure. because the emaciated body may also mean a shrunken bulge? i will appreciate comments about this in particular.


it's old home had newspaper substrate that was constantly wet/damp, and had a very bad smell. i think that is causing the problem. hopefully, the leo will improve once it has a dry and cozy environment.

day 1
i was amazed and very delighted with its feeding response. 3 adult lateralis immediately in one sitting. i thought that i'm off to a good start. but when i checked in the evening, i saw very watery poop(urates only) in one corner, and a huge chunk of solid brown "poop" on another corner. upon close inspection, the brown clump was actually undigested lateralis. oh no!!! sounds familiar?

day 2
amazingly, it ate another roach in the morning, it seemed like it wanted another. but i decided to let it digest the first roach, before i give it another. i gave it 1 more adult lateralis at noon. and a small dubia juvy in the evening. wow, this gecko is an eating machine. it's still in hunting mode, but i've learned from yesterday's mistake. too much food in one sitting can be bad for a sick gecko. so i let it be for the rest of day 2. no puke and poop so far.

day 3
this morning i saw something i like, brown poop with urates all together in one corner. it is still not well formed, but hey, at least the food went out in the right direction. no more vomit! YES! it did not eat the roach i gave this morning, i just left it in free range mode. i hope he decides to eat while i'm away at work. and i will try to feed it again later.

now for the questions:
1. should i just care for it normally? will it get better as long as it gets enough food? or should i administer anti-parasitic drugs? i'm asking because i'm afraid that my meddling with it's mouth could stress it out, and ruin its otherwise healthy/agressive feeding response.

2. do parasitic geckos get well on their own? or will the condition worsen if i do not treat it with medicine? i have identified the wet and dirty enclosure as a possible cause. and i'm hoping that putting the gecko in a clean environment will lessen if not eliminate the problem.

3. we do not have reptile medications in our area. but there are medicines for birds(like panacur). will these work? does anybody have experience?

thank you all so much!

 

[J.P.]

crypto symptoms:
1. diarhea - yes
2. vomiting - yes, day 1 only, none in day 2.
3. pain - not evident, the gecko in question is quite active, and behaves more like a healthy gecko (in my opinion) than my other geckos who just sleep most of the time.
4. swollen stomach - doesn't look like it, see the photo to judge for yourself.

2 symptoms out of 4. do we have a diagnosis?

for now, i would prefer if it's coccidiosis. because although i'm not aware whehter which is worse between crypto and coccidiosis, at least with coccidiosis, i have had previous success with my pet chickens. easy to treat if spotted early enough, just provide good nutrition and a dry and clean environment.

 

[Allee Toler]

Just weigh him, and feed him normally for a week or so. If he gains weight, poos fine, eats good, then I doubt something is wrong with him.

If he continues to have runny poo and vomit then a vet is in order. I don't care if you don't have a vet near you, we're not licensed and cannot give out medical advice. We cannot tell you how to dose panacur, we cannot diagnose crypto.

All I can say is sit back for a few days and see if he poo's and eats fine and let him gain weight. If he continues to lose weight, then it may be crypto or parasites and needs to see a vet. If all goes well, then he was just not fed and neglected.

 

[J.P.]

thanks alee!
i'll keep that in mind. but i know that vets are out of the question. we do not have herp vets in my area, at least none that i know of who are in private practice.

i'd hate it if my gecko had crypto. because even if there is a vet that can give me a proper diagnosis, i'll be powerless to do anything than try to provide it with the best of care and hope for the best. i learned just now that there is no proven cure for it.

i gotta call the local reptile keepers. maybe one of them has a bit of reptaid in their posession. i'll try to plead with them if they will sell me a few drops. the only local supplier is out of stock.

 

[J.P.]

wohoo! found somebody who is willing to loan me a few doses of reptaid. so excited to get home and check out my geckos especially the sick one.

 

[J.P.]

day 3 (evening)
i got home and found 2 droppings. the other one was watery having urates only, but the other one was better. it was soft but well formed, with obvious separation of urates and actual poop. however, the color of the poop was like mocha. not the usual dark brown that my healthy leos drop. it had red spots which i first thought was blood, thankfully it was just lateralis exoskeleton. oh, and it has eaten the free ranged lateralis when i got home. and has eaten another dubia before i called it a night. i had to replace the paper substrate twice because i read somewhere that i should not let a sick gecko's poop linger to prevent the gecko from infecting itself further. i do not know whether the stress of substrate replacement will be worth it, but i hope it will be.
i've given it a dose of reptaid, which wasn't perfectly measured. i did try an accurate dose with a syringe, but i couldn't make the gecko drink from the plastic end. so i had to wet my finger tip with some reptaid, and let the gecko lick it. i think it doesn't like the taste. it licks my finger eagerly when it is dusted with repashy powder, but it is reluctant to lick when it is reptaid.

for the first time since i got this gecko, i witnessed it shaking its legs like a healthy gecko does when it gets it's foot wet or when a roach crawls on it. just a few times, each shake a few split seconds. i hope this is nothing serious. if ever it is early symptoms of mdb, i hope to correct the problem at this early stage.

day 4 (morning)
there was some gooey poop again. i gave it another dose of reptaid, so i do not have to give it some tonight. i think it is better to stress it out in the morning, so that it can comfortably hunt in the evenings. after the medication, i tried to feed it with a dubia. it struck the dubia, then dropped it, it was looking at the dubia like it will strike again but the dubia was dead so nothing happened. i removed the dubia and replaced it with lateralis, this went down easily to my relief. i free ranged 2 lateralis again, i hope they will be eaten when i get home later.

 

[J.P.]

day 4 (evening)
more well fromed poop, but the diarhea has not stopped yet.
the shaking appears to have lessened, and seems to be an external parasite problem. because when i was observing it, it appeared like it was scratching itself on the enclosure wall. looked like it was feeling itchy. i'll be googling info on this issue.
it still has good feeding response, seems to dislike dubia, because it has spat out dubia on a couple of occassions, but lateralis always go down smooth. there is a bit of weight loss when compared to day1, weight now is 19 to 20 grams. i suspect it is fluid loss, because it always loose water with it's poop, but appears never to have touched the water dish. i wonder what i can do to encourage it to drink, short of forcing it.

i'm sorry guys. this is getting boring. i'm not expecting any more breakthrough in the next few days. i'm just glad that the diarrhea and vomiting seems to have lessened. i'll update once there is something significant. i'm confident now that the gecko won't get worse. it's only a matter of time. but we will see.........

 

[Martinotti Reptiles]

Good luck with her, she's beeeeautiful. You could try calling an exotic vet and getting some suggestions. Most are usually very willing to help you over the phone is you have questions. So even if you can't take her to one, at least you can see what a vet recommends or thinks about what you're doing.

 

[J.P.]

forgot to tell you guys. that pic was from the previous owner. i was kinda disappointed because this was taken a week before i got the gecko, so when i got it, it was worse than i expected. but i went thourgh with the deal anyway. from the photo, you can see the sub-par husbandry. slimy water dish, with dead mealworms. it's no wonder the gecko got sick. good thing the owner realized he wasn't capable of caring for the geckos before it was too late.

but now it's slowly bouncing back. i can see a significant improvement in the body mass. but i'm waiting till the weekend to check the weight, i'm like a kid waiting for christmas.

Oli,
Thank you for the compliment, i really like her color. but i 'm lost whether it's aptor or sunglow. i'm leaning towards sunglow, but the carrot head and the stripes are giving me second thoughts.
also, can i be sure that it is indeed a She? as i have said, there are no "balls" or pores, but it is emaciated, so i figured the balls would be emaciated too. i hope it is female, but it won't be so bad if it's a male. i have no plans of breeding it anyway. maybe i will if it grows to a healthy adult.

 

[Martinotti Reptiles]

Oli,
Thank you for the compliment, i really like her color. but i 'm lost whether it's aptor or sunglow. i'm leaning towards sunglow, but the carrot head and the stripes are giving me second thoughts.
also, can i be sure that it is indeed a She? as i have said, there are no "balls" or pores, but it is emaciated, so i figured the balls would be emaciated too. i hope it is female, but it won't be so bad if it's a male. i have no plans of breeding it anyway. maybe i will if it grows to a healthy adult.

I think it's an APTOR, sunglow is the morph I like to work with the most and she's not like any sunglow I've seen. But she does look like many APTORs I've seen - exacty because of the orange spotting and stripes. I think she's quite lovely, and she'll be stunning when she's big and healthy again.

From the angle of the photo I think it's a she, but it's tough to say. If you don't see pores then she's probably a "she." That's the one thing that wouldn't change if she loses or gains weight. If you want you can post a photo of her underside and see if we can help you. That way at least you know what kind of name to give her lol. That's the worst part, for me, having geckos that are so young I don't know whether to call them something masculine or femenine.

 

[J.P.]

Oli,
thanks. i will try to upload photos soon. there's also something i need to show the rest of the experienced keepers, i'm concerned about a dark area in the lower belly. i think it's the liver, but i'm not sure whether it's too big or just normal. doesn't seem to bother her though. will show you guys just to be sure.

glad that you think it's an aptor. i don't prefer aptor or sunglow, i just want to confirm which. i was torn because the head looks like an aptor's, but the tail looks like it belongs to a sunglow. i've gone through about a million google pics, and i'm still not sure. hahaha.
it sucks that i can't trace the genetics because this was supossedly from a bulk shipment of hatchlings. at least i'm sure that it's tremper, because that is the only line that the breeder works with.

 

[J.P.]

here are pics of the vent area

and here is a shot of the belly. please check out the dark area. is that the liver? is it too large or just normal? (and in theis photo, it seems there are "bulges")

here's how the poop looks like, well fromed but different in color from my normal leos' poop. is this normal?

it's 25 grams now. i can barely notice the improvement, i hope it will continue to get better and better. it looks as "healthy" as it did in the photo, it was much much worse before i started the reptaid.

the gooey poop has come back, i don't know if it's the infection again, or because i gave it a lot of freshly molted superworms. maybe it can't digest the fat properly so there is gooey poop. but it's well formed again since i switched back the diet to roaches. i only tried the super worms because i thought a high fat diet will make it gain weight faster.

 

[Martinotti Reptiles]

I can't help you with the poop, because I'm not sure, but I think that it's definately a she. I don't see pores and those can't disapear with weight loss. The photo of her belly is a little dark, so it's tough to say, but I think that it's just her organs.

Don't worry about getting her nice and fat quickly, it's better for her system if you just give her a good meal and let her get healthy at her own pace

 

[J.P.]

oli,
thank you. from now on, i will refer to her as a she. yipee!

i got to admit, feeding her super worms is also a selfish reason. i have a blast watching her eat. and super worms were the perfect target. just fast enough to get her attention quickly, but slow enough to be caught easily. i was able to slow down the lateralis by crippling them, this is tedious work, but i'm calling it labor of love.

 

[TheRed]

You could always put the lateralis in the fridge for a bit before feeding. With my dubias, I usually put them on their backs so they can't get away. I don't know if that works with lateralis though.

 

[J.P.]

TheRed,
thanks for the tip. if my wife sees roaches in the fridge, that will be the end of my herping. lol!

i clip the end of the lateralis' legs with tiny scissors. it's a delicate process, but it significantly slows down the roaches. still erratic which is good, but is not too fast. she can take down a healthy dubia without trouble, my problem is, i'm running out of young dubia to feed her. so it has to be lateralis for now.

now comes the problem. this sick gecko used to hunt very well. but she has completely stopped eating since yesterday. i know that one day of off feeding is not a cause for worry. i have geckos that do not eat for up to a week and they are fine. but in her case, i am concerned. she does not have enough nutrient reserves to allow her to fast and stay healthy. and her diarhea has come back, so she really has to eat if she is to stay healthy. she was a voracious eater, and i'm confused why she suddenly doesn't have her usual apetite. i'm not sure if this is a problem, i just would have prefered if her road to recovery was consistent.

i'm a bit frustrated now, just when i was starting to see a significant improvement, i think i'm suddenly back at square one.

what if making her drink the reptaid is causing her stress? the directions say i must give it to her every day for 20 days. i'm only at day 9. i do not want to disturb her again in order to encourage her to eat. but this was not a problem before, she used to start eating right after i put her back in the enclosure. and i'm reluctant to stop the treatment because if the parasites are not completely eliminated and i stop the treatment, the parasites could develop resistance to the medication. please share advice regarding this.

 

[TheRed]

I know about the roaches. My girlfriend told me if she sees even one anywhere but the cage they're gone haha.
The dark spot on her stomach could be her liver. When geckos go into starvation mode and start processing their fat reserves it's tough on the liver. I can't think of the name of the condition right now.
As for feeding her, you could try making this slurry as well. I've never used it but have heard great things about it. Just mix it in a blender and put the drops on her lips so she'll lick it off.
Eric

 

[J.P.]

thanks TheRed. i will try handfeeding as a last resort.

one roach was missing when i got home last night, i'm positive it was eaten during the day. and then i saw her eat another roach in the evening. but the poop was still too wet and mushy. oh well, at least she is eating, minimal as it may be, hopefully it is enough food to maintain her weight until her apetite comes back.