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underweight dehydrated turkish gecko

bumble Mar 17, 2006 05:12 PM

I've been keeping turkish geckos for about five years now, originally I only had one living in a community enclosure. Since the other occupants have since passed on I purchaesed another turkish gecko to go with the first one about three months ago. I think I may have trouble now though and I don't know if it is to do with territorial behaviour or not. My original gecko is in really good shape but the new one has lost loads of weight over the last couple of weeks and looks dehydrated. The original gecko is making clicking noises and raising and dipping its head. The new gecko looks really bad, here's the pics:

the ill guy

the healthy guy

both

-----
gav, owned by:
1 Beardie (Lujan)
1 Okeetee Corn Snake (Serrano)
2 Fire-bellied Toads (Bill & Ben)
1 African Clawed Frog (Xenopus)
1 Giant Land Snail (Bert)
1 Turkish Gecko (Gordon)
2 Madigascan Hissing Cockroaches (Rosie & Jim)
15 Rats (too numerous to name)
1 Mastomys Rodent
3 Cats (Felix, Sami, & Willow)
14 assorted fish

Replies (2)

joeysgreen Mar 18, 2006 05:48 AM

First to note, is your lack of quarantine. Your new captive is stressed, and will fair better in solitude until proven healthy. This also protects your previous gecko from incoming illnesses, as hopefully they will be detected while observing your new gecko in it's seperate enclosure.

Another thing to note, is that while your enclosure looks very nice, it is lacking much of what an arboreal gecko desires. The top is mostly open space, and the geckos don't have much opportunity to feel hidden and secure while in their prefered niche. This is exaggarated by the presence of a larger, territorial animal that has already made this enclosure it's home. The newbie cannot hide from it's cagemate. For the size of cage, I would not house more than 1 or 2 geckos even with added foliage.

Finally, if you have two males, there isn't much you can do to prevent stress, and they should be kept seperate.

For the immediate, if after seperation your new gecko doesn't look to be making a quick improvement, a vet visit should be your next step to give it a boost in the right direction.

Good luck

Ian

bumble Mar 18, 2006 08:28 AM

First to note, is your lack of quarantine. Your new captive is stressed, and will fair better in solitude until proven healthy. This also protects your previous gecko from incoming illnesses, as hopefully they will be detected while observing your new gecko in it's seperate enclosure.

Another thing to note, is that while your enclosure looks very nice, it is lacking much of what an arboreal gecko desires. The top is mostly open space, and the geckos don't have much opportunity to feel hidden and secure while in their prefered niche. This is exaggarated by the presence of a larger, territorial animal that has already made this enclosure it's home. The newbie cannot hide from it's cagemate. For the size of cage, I would not house more than 1 or 2 geckos even with added foliage.

Finally, if you have two males, there isn't much you can do to prevent stress, and they should be kept seperate.

For the immediate, if after seperation your new gecko doesn't look to be making a quick improvement, a vet visit should be your next step to give it a boost in the right direction.

Good luck

Thanks for that joeysgreen. Unfortunately the gecko died last night. In response to your post, the gecko was quarantined. The geckos were both male. The information and literature I have had access to is very uninformative concerning group living of this species. When studies have been done (and there are hardly any) trapping and sexing has not been carried out. Trappings resulted in immediate tail dropping and was not considered ethical for wild animals. They are so small (4 inches) skitty and very fast - just to make it more difficult.

For the enclosure I attempted to copy parts of their natural environment - the Mediterranean coastal areas. I have seen them personally in houses and on walls, wooded areas and even desert, they are very adaptable. The tank is 36 inches high by 24 inches wide and ten inches deep, the pic is taken at an angle so it looks a bit distorted, I believe it is large enough for 4 - 6 individuals (so I was advised by an experienced zoo keeper). There are two thick leaved climbing plants one each side of the tank that you can't see on the pic, at the base there is 4 kilos of porous rock with lots of little cool holes and cavities for hiding. But the geckos seem to prefer it on the front glass of the tank for some reason. The prefered basking area in on the top of the wood just within the leaves.

I will attempt to place a female with him and see how it goes.
-----
gav, owned by:
1 Beardie (Lujan)
1 Okeetee Corn Snake (Serrano)
2 Fire-bellied Toads (Bill & Ben)
3 Giant Land Snails (Bert and co)
2 Turkish Geckos
2 Madigascan Hissing Cockroaches (Rosie & Jim)
18 Rats (too numerous to name)
1 Mastomys Rodent
3 Cats (Felix, Sami, & Willow)
5 assorted fish
1 Rabbit (Harvey)

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