Nynecho
New member
Hi, a while back we bought a gecko for my brother ("Bullseye"). He was an adult when we got him, skinny as hell, had a regrown tail tip, was being kept on sand, but he was still doin alright.
I immediately told my brother and dad everything they needed to know about taking care of him, even though I was the primary caregiver. I had him quarantined for a while until I was sure he was parasite free and eating well, then I gave him a female to hang out with.
This guy has a strong breeding response, so I thought a female would be healthy for him. They got along great since she usually bullies other females and now had a male her size that she couldn't pick on. He would go to mate and they would do the dance, but she would never bite him back when he perused her, so he almost always lost interest and never locked on. Eventually I had to move out of my dads place, so I took the female (who eventually became egg bound but was successfully able to pass the eggs after 2 months and continued to make more fertile eggs with a different male) and I had to leave my brother's gecko behind.
I was upset cause I knew they would mess up and come crying to me for help, and now that it's happened I expected him to be perhaps healthy just a little skinnier maybe with some shed on his toes.
Well even though I had just sold all my lesser quality/petco geckos as pets, I reluctantly took in this guy again and promised to keep him.
I was horrified when I went to pick him up...
He was in a ten gallon (this gecko is almost 11 inches long) with ONE hide, a water dish, and an empty food dish, and he was on SAND. They had been feeding him only crickets... on the sand... I took him back to my hotel room before driving back down south, he had a 20 gallon with a moist hide and heat pad for the night, but first, I had to get the shed off his toes.
Instantly I noticed that nearly every toe was covered with FOUR LAYERS of unshed skin. The only toes without shed had already fallen off. He had all his toes when we first got him...
As I started peeling the easier toes off, some of his toe tips were just coming off with the shed. Imagine how long they had to have been like that for the toes to just die off like that.
I had to use my finger nails a little more to get the harder ones. They usually came off with ease, but because of the immediate release of pressure, most toes bled at this point. Out of his 20 toes, he lost most of them. He has maybe 3 claws left in total, and even after attempting to save the toes, some are going to be falling off any day now cause I was a little too late getting him. I don't even want to post pictures cause I cried just looking at them.
Throughout just cleaning his toes, he "peed" on me 4 times, and my hands were covered in blood. He did not once bite me, all he did was give me kisses throughout the whole thing.
He also had sand in his eyes, thankfully I always carry around saline eyedrops and got it out before it got infected.
He also had the worst femoral pore blockage I had ever seen. It looked like he was growing fingernails out of his pores. I used tweezers to just pull out the wax, and then gave him a warm bath to clean him. The longest piece of wax that he had building up in there was 1/4 of a centimeter long. I'm not exactly sure what caused that, but I can assure you if he had a moist hide it wouldn't have built up that bad.
Last but not least, he had mouthrot. Very mild, yet easily avoidable. He probably also had MBD, but I'm not 100% sure, he hasn't seen a proper vet.
Because of his entire diet being large crickets, his poop was huge and clearly had undigested cricket shells. I've got him on dubias and mealworms right now.
After the first night back with me, some of his toes have regained color, some are looking like they won't be staying long, and his mouthrot is healing well (it's almost gone if you can believe that) I'll be posting pictures as soon as he's well enough to be dragged out of his cage for anything other than a bath. He's in a 20 Gallon long right now.
I can just hope after all I've done for him, he heals well and knows I'm only here to help. I'm giving him warm soaks daily to help his toes, as well as putting neosporin on the bad ones, since they do hurt him even if he doesn't act like it. He's a really sturdy boy and I really wish I hadn't been forced to leave him with those people in the first place.
In the future I think I'll just keep him as a pet or leave him with my grandma to take care of. She's really grown on the geckos.
I don't think I'll ever breed him, mostly because if his poor life, but also because of his genetics. I'm pretty sure he's a Mack Snow, but it's impossible to know unless someday I choose to take in a good sized wild type female who won't mind being slightly dissatisfied in bed. It would be interesting to test breed him but he needs some time and serious r&r.
I'll post a "before" picture now so you get an idea of what he looked like before I left him, along with his female ("Pickle").
I immediately told my brother and dad everything they needed to know about taking care of him, even though I was the primary caregiver. I had him quarantined for a while until I was sure he was parasite free and eating well, then I gave him a female to hang out with.
This guy has a strong breeding response, so I thought a female would be healthy for him. They got along great since she usually bullies other females and now had a male her size that she couldn't pick on. He would go to mate and they would do the dance, but she would never bite him back when he perused her, so he almost always lost interest and never locked on. Eventually I had to move out of my dads place, so I took the female (who eventually became egg bound but was successfully able to pass the eggs after 2 months and continued to make more fertile eggs with a different male) and I had to leave my brother's gecko behind.
I was upset cause I knew they would mess up and come crying to me for help, and now that it's happened I expected him to be perhaps healthy just a little skinnier maybe with some shed on his toes.
Well even though I had just sold all my lesser quality/petco geckos as pets, I reluctantly took in this guy again and promised to keep him.
I was horrified when I went to pick him up...
He was in a ten gallon (this gecko is almost 11 inches long) with ONE hide, a water dish, and an empty food dish, and he was on SAND. They had been feeding him only crickets... on the sand... I took him back to my hotel room before driving back down south, he had a 20 gallon with a moist hide and heat pad for the night, but first, I had to get the shed off his toes.
Instantly I noticed that nearly every toe was covered with FOUR LAYERS of unshed skin. The only toes without shed had already fallen off. He had all his toes when we first got him...
As I started peeling the easier toes off, some of his toe tips were just coming off with the shed. Imagine how long they had to have been like that for the toes to just die off like that.
I had to use my finger nails a little more to get the harder ones. They usually came off with ease, but because of the immediate release of pressure, most toes bled at this point. Out of his 20 toes, he lost most of them. He has maybe 3 claws left in total, and even after attempting to save the toes, some are going to be falling off any day now cause I was a little too late getting him. I don't even want to post pictures cause I cried just looking at them.
Throughout just cleaning his toes, he "peed" on me 4 times, and my hands were covered in blood. He did not once bite me, all he did was give me kisses throughout the whole thing.
He also had sand in his eyes, thankfully I always carry around saline eyedrops and got it out before it got infected.
He also had the worst femoral pore blockage I had ever seen. It looked like he was growing fingernails out of his pores. I used tweezers to just pull out the wax, and then gave him a warm bath to clean him. The longest piece of wax that he had building up in there was 1/4 of a centimeter long. I'm not exactly sure what caused that, but I can assure you if he had a moist hide it wouldn't have built up that bad.
Last but not least, he had mouthrot. Very mild, yet easily avoidable. He probably also had MBD, but I'm not 100% sure, he hasn't seen a proper vet.
Because of his entire diet being large crickets, his poop was huge and clearly had undigested cricket shells. I've got him on dubias and mealworms right now.
After the first night back with me, some of his toes have regained color, some are looking like they won't be staying long, and his mouthrot is healing well (it's almost gone if you can believe that) I'll be posting pictures as soon as he's well enough to be dragged out of his cage for anything other than a bath. He's in a 20 Gallon long right now.
I can just hope after all I've done for him, he heals well and knows I'm only here to help. I'm giving him warm soaks daily to help his toes, as well as putting neosporin on the bad ones, since they do hurt him even if he doesn't act like it. He's a really sturdy boy and I really wish I hadn't been forced to leave him with those people in the first place.
In the future I think I'll just keep him as a pet or leave him with my grandma to take care of. She's really grown on the geckos.
I don't think I'll ever breed him, mostly because if his poor life, but also because of his genetics. I'm pretty sure he's a Mack Snow, but it's impossible to know unless someday I choose to take in a good sized wild type female who won't mind being slightly dissatisfied in bed. It would be interesting to test breed him but he needs some time and serious r&r.
I'll post a "before" picture now so you get an idea of what he looked like before I left him, along with his female ("Pickle").
I'm glad he's in better hands now. I really hope that his health continues to improve. There could be other issues that are not visible so he should definitely see a vet. Dehydration is another serious possibility. Good luck with everything! I hate it when family members or close friends do not care for animals properly. There are a couple of absolutely stubborn family members that come to mind.
