Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My boyfriend & I were in town yesterday & thought we would look in the pet shop for a bit, well they sell furries & scaleys there,but prob is they dont seem to have a clue about reptiles, they had an extremely thin high yellow male & a rather skinny Melanistic female, well i bought the Melanistic because i have been looking for one, i felt so bad leaving that poor male, but we have no where to house it!!!,all my leos are female.Even though the leos are in poor condition, they have an enormous appitite & look juvinile,they were being fed tiny crix!,no wonder they are starving!.Well ive took my gal home,fed her loads of big blacks & wax worm,powdered in Nutrobal*,also gave her some hydrolife, but she is in quarintine,because im worried sick,she might have crypto-sporidia!,her pin bones dont show,but she is thin & her tail is thin, but not as thin as the male leos!.Im hoping to fatten her up so good she can fight whats wrong, once her tail gets fat, she should be ok.
Her personality bloomed the moment i took her from that horrible place,she is active enough, has big appitite,she does not act sick, but she is too thin for my liking!.
Does anyone have any tips on how to really fatten up a gecko????

well, for starters, just keep a bowl of mealies available at all times. the only way it can fatten up is if it eats, so having food available is a must.

-Matt
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perfect7.com - Website Design & Development

1.1 Leopard Geckos ("Owen" - normal & "Wee One" - patternless)
0.1.1 Ball Python (both normal: Monty & Musota)

you see im beinging to believe she does not have crypto, as she eats like she has been starved, she hunts great, eats well,her weight has increased overnight, since i helped her out*,she does not show any purple under belly, her eyes are bright, she is very alert, they say with crypto,your gecko wont eat,& is lathargic?her bones are soft,& she is quite skinny like she has been malnurished!
the people i got her from, did not have a clue what she needed, i must say i have seen some good improvement even over a day!!!, as i could feel her spine, now i cant!
what other things cause leos to go skinny?

i'll be honest, i'm no expert when it comes to crypto, and i hope i never have to deal with it. maybe someone else can shed some light.

the biggest cause of weight loss is malnurishment. i feed mine every single day, about 8-10 mealies a piece. sometimes i forget a day, and they show that they are hungry. as soon as i start putting the worms in their bowl, they eat them as soon as they hit. i can only imagine how long your gecko went without eating. just keep the food available, and it'll put on the weight in no time.

-Matt
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perfect7.com - Website Design & Development

1.1 Leopard Geckos ("Owen" - normal & "Wee One" - patternless)
0.1.1 Ball Python (both normal: Monty & Musota)

Just keep offering her food, and make sure she gets plenty of calcium. It will probably take time for her to gain weight and get used to actually getting feed. It wouldnt hurt though to go make a vet apt. You can never be to sure about these disease though. Its best to get it done now and stop somethign before it becomes a huge problem before it is to late to fix. So far though everything sounds great for her and sounds like she is just really hungry.
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2 male leos: Winky HY & Lenny TangCT & 4 Female Leos: Sunshine Super tang, Serenity Tremper HY Jungle Albino, Skittle Hypo-Golden, and Banana Patternless.

your actually not rescuing anuthing. your supporting the store to buy, and mistreat more animals. If you realy want to rescue something, than dont buy anything from there in the future.

your actually not rescuing anything. your supporting the store to buy, and mistreat more animals. If you realy want to rescue something, than dont buy anything from there in the future.

I am grateful to all who helped me here*, I feel confident enough that with a lot of love and feeding my new female Melenistic, Truedy as ive called her,named afetr the TV vet* shall, will pull through*.
Yes I understand I gave that pet shop a business buying her from there, but i just could not leave her!, & to make matters worse this pet shop had a male even skinnier than her,I think he is beyond help, but i really wanted to save him too!, I feel horrible now that i just left him in that awful place, at least we have lots 22 reptiles, a lot of experience, I wouldnt be feeding him pin head crix, and never supplying him with vit&min powder, all they give them is tiny crix with no powders!, I truly HATE these pet shop people, every time i go there they have a new reptile suffering their ignorance needlessly!.
I do wish to rescue the other one, I have hydrolife & nutrobal & Biopro, all of that with lots of food in him, should really do some healing!.Truth is though, we cant save every poor little soul, I mean Im running out of space,but I feel such horrible guilt that he was in with my one & now he has no company & he is still suffering in that horrible place, at least if i bought him , I know what Im doing, but there are so many people that dont have a clue with reptiles,I'll never forgive myself if he ends up sold to a right prat, who will just make him worse & no doubt he will die!, it breaks my heart!.
What should I do???
Im seriously thinking of buying him, then reporting those ass holes to the RSPCA!

Well first I would report them to the RSPCA, its worth a try. Unfortunently if you did buy him, it will only give the pet shop more money to abuse more reptiles. The best thing you can do is report it and hope the RSPCA will do soemthing about it....

Whats the RSPCA? If it's like the ASPCA they won't do anything about it. Every pet store is subject to inspection and all they have to do is maintain minimum requirements which are extremely limited. If you don't want to see another gecko put through that just don't return to the pet store because you can almost be gauranteed that if you return two more geckos will have taken her place. Also don't go jumping to conclusions by saying it might be crypto. I would say it is just malnourished, sure there is a lot of talk about crypto but truthfully it is fairly rare. It is discussed a lot mainly for the fact that it can wipe out a colony without the ownwer being able to do anything. Since you got it from a pet store most of the geckos with crypto would probably have already died because of the huge amounts of stress on these mass marketed animals.

Thank you for your advice*
I phoned the RSPCA Royal Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals & they said they are going to inspect the pet shop tomorrow, I asked if I could take on the sick gecko, they said its very possible!.
Well I feel I have done the right thing, as its not just reptiles that look like they need more care, they have rabbits & guinea pigs in cramped conditions, birds cant stretch their wings, & rodents are in tiny tanks cramped together!.
So I think that the place could possibly end up closing,when RSPCA see the state its in!.
Thank you all for making me make the right decision***
Take care
Gillian*

That is promoting their desire to sell more.

Also, the darkened color may or may not mean it is "melanistic." Leos under stress will seriously darken.

I don't mean for this to be a negative post, just some thoughts I had from reading your information.

Steven-RGR