I wanted to share a happy story about my little gecko named Vegas. Vegas is a het albino african fat tailed gecko that i bought in Las Vegas at a reptile show. we drove all the way from san diego CA. we got this girl in hopes of breeding her and she weighed a little over 50 grams.
we introduced her to one of my males, Zeek, but she never became gravid. we gave up and a few months later she stopped eating, rapidly started loosing weight, and her abdomin became greatly swollen to larger then her own head!!
I took her to the vet hrs away and he suggested an antibiotic which had no effects on the swollen mass and it kept getting bigger. the DVM told me that the only way to figure out what was going on inside her belly was to have surgery. he said also the only other thing i could do would be to hand feed her which i did, baby food and vanilla ensure. finally after about another 2 months i thought she would surly POP! i called the vet to ask about how much the surgery would cost, he said about $200. i was shocked and thought it would be more!
i immediately scheduled her for surgery!! she pulled through the surgery and i took her home. she had two swollen ovaries the size of thumbs that had to be removed!! needless to say poor little Vegas is now infertile but alive. since she has been home, 2 or more months, i have had to continue with the hand feeding EVERY SINGLE NIGHT!! as of 2 days ago she finally started to eat crickets!! 5 the first night and 9 the second night and continueing on tonight!
i have attached pictures, the first is prior to any health problems and the others are after surgery where you can see the scar on her little belly (tonight). sorry i dont have any pictures of her when she was swollen but it was unimaginable!!
she is only around 40 grams right now but i expect her to gain weight rapidly.
