Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My male crested gecko has a bumpy tail. It is like somewhat zig-zagged. I dot think this is normal and what can i do to help it?

It sounds like it has a kinked tail. It's from a lack of calcium. How long have you had it? What are you feeding it? What did the previous owner feed it? I don't know how long it's been like this, but if you catch it soon enough and get alot of calcium in him, the tail could go back to normal, but more times than not, the kinks will stay there.
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Matt Smith
Exotic-Adventure

I bought him last week at the NARBC show in aneheim. i am feeding it dusted crickets and baby food. I do not know what the previous owner fed him but im pretty sure its the same. I really want him to have a normal tail. If his tail is kinked will it affect him breeding?

First off, get him off Baby food.... Get some Crested Gecko Diet. If he has been on baby food before, it is possible that he may have gotten addicted to the baby food. This is common and why people should not feed baby food. It has no nutritional value at all. You may have to mix some baby food in with the crested gecko diet for a while. Use less and less baby food until it will eat strictly crested gecko diet. Crested gecko diet is a complete formula with everything in it that they need. You can still feed dusted crickets, but you don't have to anyt more. Get it off baby food as fast as you can though and get it onto the diet.
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Matt Smith
Exotic-Adventure

>>First off, get him off Baby food.... Get some Crested Gecko Diet. If he has been on baby food before, it is possible that he may have gotten addicted to the baby food. This is common and why people should not feed baby food. It has no nutritional value at all. You may have to mix some baby food in with the crested gecko diet for a while. Use less and less baby food until it will eat strictly crested gecko diet. Crested gecko diet is a complete formula with everything in it that they need. You can still feed dusted crickets, but you don't have to anyt more. Get it off baby food as fast as you can though and get it onto the diet.
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>>Matt Smith
>>Exotic-Adventure

Yes, CGD is better than baby food, but claiming that baby food has zero nutritional value is ridiculous. If that were the case, would we feed it to our babies? I think not. It would not for a moment surprise me to learn that there are happy, healthy cresteds out there that live on a diet consisting entirely of baby food & dusted crickets. Heck, for the first 6 months of her life, mine wasn't interested in much of anything other than crickets, and she grew like a weed. Now she eats mainly CGD, with crickets about once a week for variety, but at the beginning, she wasn't interested in it at all, and only had a passing interest in baby food, for that matter.
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear

Last time I checked, humans and geckos needed a whole lot different nutrition... Check with any big time gecko people out there, Repashy, Anthony Caponetto, to name a couple... Baby food is junk food for geckos. Yes, they can live off dusted crickets, but they are very fatening and easy to make them obese. This is the same with baby food, very fatening because it's full of sugars... NOT GOOD. They may grow very fast, doesn't mean they are healthy....Alot of geckos aren't interested in CGD at all, that's why you mix in baby food with it and slowly cut down on it. Baby food is candy for geckos, just as you would associate candy for humans, unless you mix a whole bunch of other junk in the baby food, it's junk food.
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Matt Smith
Exotic-Adventure

>>Last time I checked, humans and geckos needed a whole lot different nutrition... Check with any big time gecko people out there, Repashy, Anthony Caponetto, to name a couple... Baby food is junk food for geckos. Yes, they can live off dusted crickets, but they are very fatening and easy to make them obese. This is the same with baby food, very fatening because it's full of sugars... NOT GOOD. They may grow very fast, doesn't mean they are healthy....Alot of geckos aren't interested in CGD at all, that's why you mix in baby food with it and slowly cut down on it. Baby food is candy for geckos, just as you would associate candy for humans, unless you mix a whole bunch of other junk in the baby food, it's junk food.
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At no point did I claim that geckos and humans needed the same nutrition; I was just calling into question your absurd claim that there was zero nutritional value in baby food. It has protein, carbohydrates and vitamins. If you can somehow prove that there is zero nutritional value there, I'll be very impressed.
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear

>>Yes, CGD is better than baby food, but claiming that baby food has zero nutritional value is ridiculous. If that were the case, would we feed it to our babies? I think not.

so you're saying it would be ok to feed our human babies dusted crickets as well?
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3.1 snakes, 3.3 crested geckos, 0.1 gargoyle gecko, 2.0 devon rex cats, 1.0 betta

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>>so you're saying it would be ok to feed our human babies dusted crickets as well?
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So you're saying that dusted crickets would have no nutritional value for a human? Several Asian cultures eat crickets, grashoppers, and several other varieties of insect...
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear

Unless you mix a bunch of stuff in with the baby food, it's no good. It is candy for geckos.
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Matt Smith
Exotic-Adventure

nope i'm not, just being funny. people take things too seriously.
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3.1 snakes, 3.3 crested geckos, 0.1 gargoyle gecko, 2.0 devon rex cats, 1.0 betta

>>nope i'm not, just being funny. people take things too seriously.
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>>3.1 snakes, 3.3 crested geckos, 0.1 gargoyle gecko, 2.0 devon rex cats, 1.0 betta

Eh, I was just being kinda snarky myself because I don't like to see people state logical fallacies when they give out otherwise good advice. What Smith710 seemingly fails to notice is that I agreed with him the whole time that CGD is best - I just don't like the statement that baby food has no nutritional value, as this is obviously false.
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear

Ok, everybody get over all of this... CGD is what you want to feed your gecko... Just leave it at that.
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Matt Smith
Exotic-Adventure