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For four years I thought my leo was a male. By looking at pictures it seems pretty obvious. He/she has the very noticable little dots shaped as a V. However, we were at the vet and he actually looked inside and said he is a female. So Rex's name changed to Rexy. I am having second thoughts, I still think Rex is a male. The vet at this point has been useless in helping me, I am extremly angry at him because of another situation. I don't know if he is a certified herp vet, he is the only one in town who sees reptiles. Has anyone every heard of a female looking like a male? or have any opinons or thoughts? Thanks,

Lisa

Alright, a lot of vets will see herps, but not all of these are qualified. Go to www.anapsid.org to find a registered herp vet in your area. Does the leo have the pores and hemipenal bulges?
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**Alyssa**
Leos4you-High Quality Leos, Without The Designer Prices!!

There are no vets listed in my area. I'm sure this is the only one who sees reptiles. I'm going to check tomorow to see if he is certified, but I don't think he is.

I'm not entirely sure if he has those pores and bulges, but I think so. He/she looks like every picture of sexing a male that I have seen, and nothing like the females.

Can you take a snapshot of its underside and post it? (even if you don't have a digital camera, you can use a regular camera & have Walmart one-hour-photo develop it onto a CD for pretty cheap)

~~Dusty

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So Many Alleles, So Little Time...!
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~~The Gecko Barn~~

I do have a digital camera, I'm just computer illiterate. I'll figure it out tomorow and post. I want to post pic's of a scab on her/him as well, it seems to be swollen and not healing where the vet gave her a needle. Thanks so much for your replies,

Lisa

I don't want to stress Rex out and take a picture today. He/she just needs to relax because he's VERY VERY SICK. Hopefully Rex will get better and I'll post pic's. Unfortunately it's not looking so good right now

Looked inside of what?
Leopard geckos aren't difficult to sex...I'm not sure what your vet would expect to see by "looking inside" the cloaca. The hemipenes are inverted into the tail, they wouldn't be visible that way. This is why people either "pop" them (evert the hemipenes) or use sexing probes in reptiles that aren't as dimorphic as leopards.

I'm not 100% sure what he did. He stuck some sort of plastic stick inside where the pore type looking things are (sorry my leopard gecko vocab is very limited), and moved it around. It looked really quite painful, Rex hated it. As soon as he is feeling better I'll take some pics (hopefully he gets better). With all the other stuff the vet told me to do, stressing him out trying to get a good shot is the last thing I want to do. Thanks for your info and knowledge, you really sound like you know what your talking about. I've been having other problems with the vet and have posted numerous times the last few days. Maybe if you get a sec you could check them out and let me know what you think. What did you mean by this "or use sexing probes in reptiles that aren't as dimorphic as leopards". Thanks again,

Lisa

Sexing probes are usually stainless steel, they're thin little rods with a tiny ball on the end--the have little markings on them. To sex (for example) a snake, you insert the probe in the cloaca in the direction of the tail, very gently. The cloaca does not go back far in females, but because males' hemipenes are inverted into the tail, the probe will go much further back in a male.

It's difficult to tell from your description just what your vet was trying to do to your leo, or with what. If it was a sexing probe, it's completely unecessary to use those on leopard geckos...if it was something else, it shouldn't have been used.

Here's a set:
http://lllreptile.com/v2/content/catalog/?product_string=sexing-probes-6-piece-set-ball-tipped

You could (and I would, if I were you) call the vet and ask exactly what she did, and how, and with what. If you get any answer other than "I used a sexing probe to check for hemipenes" you ought to get yourself a new vet.

Even then, I've never heard of anyone probing a leopard gecko. I have to question how much experience the vet has, and whether they should have been using a probe at all (if that's what it was), because it's easy for an inexperienced person to injure a reptile that way.

It did kind of look like one of those, about 4 inches, with a ball tip, but I remeber it being plastic. I don't think this vet has treated a leo before, but unfortunately he is the only one in town who sees reptiles.

Do you have any advice on force feeding? the vet really wants me to. I was just letting Rex lick liquid calcium (from the vet) and baby food off his lips, untill he started violently gaging from the stuff. I asked about the possibility of breaking his jaw, but the vet said it's extremly hard to do.

Before I heard of trying babyfood the vet wanted me to blend up crikets in the blender. Have you ever heard of this? I think it sounds ridiculous. Not only would I need a ton of crikets, it would be so messy, and I guarantee some would escape.

Thanks again,
Lisa

Forcefeeding is always inadviseable, and should only be done in reptiles in the most dire of circumstances--the stress of force-feeding can by itself cause a reptile to succumb to illness.

If your gecko has tail-fat left, don't force feed it. The gagging makes it sound like he has some sort of stomach upset--forcefeeding would merely cause him to regurgitate, further weakening him. If he's licking stuff off when you put drops on his lips, that's more than enough.
What is the gecko being treated for? (I assume it must be being treated for something, since the implication is that he's not eating on his own).

He is being treated for MBD, it has gotten really bad. His tail just in the last week looks like it has shrunk to half it's normal size. He has stoped licking the stuff off his lips, so yesterday I got him to open his mouth (gently) and I acctually got it in all at once. Unfortunatly he was trying to throw it up all last night, I think he did, but I'm not sure. It's definately not looking good at all. He wont open his eyes all the way (if he does at all), this started Tuesday. I don't know what to do anymore, I think I have tried everything. Thanks again for your input,

Lisa

I would suspect something more than MBD alone, if he's being treated with calcium now, and he's declining, but I don't have much experience with MBD patients. You don't want to force the jaws on an MBD patient, the risk is very high that their fragile jaw will break. I have heard some lizards can break their own jaw just by biting down on something, if they have severe MBD. I think a trip back to the vet might be a good idea, to check for possible infection, parasites (if that hasn't been done), or dehydration.