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What's the health problem...

pbobek May 27, 2004 04:49 AM

I've got a male leoparg grcko. It's about 2 years old.I own him for abot 1,5 year.I've bought it form my local shop in my home town.The problem showed up when i' ve bouth him a female and it's prolonged eversion of hemipenes - i knew it isn't normal so i went to local wet. But his no expert in reptiles, as in Poland thera is big lack of them. He has contacted some fellow wets of him, and we managed to help him in hiding them. This is the only problem he has ever coused - he doesn't he an medical record.I've seperated him from the female and put him in a faunabox - now there's sand and heating stone. But he was kept on sand (i've always ketp him on only this type of supstrat since i've got him, and i don't know on what he was kept befor that) in terrarium (35x60x35 cm) where the air temperature was was 28 C (thermometr in the middle) - heated from a bulp if nessesary and a a heating cable put under a glass so he could't dig it up - this thin is controled by a thermocontroler set on 28 C. The light is provided by an Repti Glo 2.0 uvb,uva bulb. the photo period is about 12 to 9 hours - i was changing them during the year shorter - winter, longer summer, and it wasn't changed suddenly only by little changes.There's a dish with water always standing changed every 1,2 days and he drinks from it.I've clean it every 3-5 months , his fecals are constanty removed.
He's on cricets (used to be raised by me - now bought from a breeder, i can't support amount for 2 geckos), some mealworms or superworms from time to time, during the summer i go and catch some grasshoppers, moths and butterflies. I try not to force him to do any thin so I just used to put my hand in the terrarium and he used to basked on it for a while. I' do it every day or if i don't have time the second day.
This is his first female.And he has always alone he used tobe my only pet. (now i,ve got also the female)
The only changes in behavior was that when he was young he cought the crickets by himself, but then there was a time i fed him from hand (i was holdign the cricet), now i've stop that and he has problems in estimating the distance between him and the cricket. But he's doing better now.
The only change in his apetitte is that he used to eat 2 cricets in 2 days time now it's 1 cricet in 3 days.
I thought hes condition is extremly good until this acident with hemipenes.
This is the second time it is hapening.
And the 1 one happend 3 months ago. - they lived seperatly from then and now it happened for the second time.It' was always the same for the first week since they are together nothing happens and then they start to copulate he doesn't hide them right away.
And that's about it.I hope i've provided every information needed.If not please e-mail me (pbobek@wp.pl) or write it in the forum (i'll be monitoring it).
I'm hoping to get some informationabout the problem so the wet, Splinter (that's his name) and i can work it all out.
So plese tell me what can be the couse of this and how to solve it (what kind of exams does he need to confim it), or conntact me with somone who could know the problem.

Piotrek

Replies (2)

GoldenGateGeckos May 27, 2004 04:36 PM

Hemipenes that will not invert are also referred to as prolasped. This can be cause by several things, among them being...
1- large fat deposits surrounding the vent area
2- residual or dried fecal matter or urates in the cloaca
3- residual or dried semenal plugs in the cloaca
4- over use from repeated copulations over a short period of time

The first thing you should do is remove him from being on sand and put him on paper towels. This is NOT a substrate judgement, it is to prevent sand from sticking to the hemipenis and causing further irritation and/or infection.

Using a swab generously covered with KY Jelly or some other water-based lubricant, gently clean off his hemipenis and vent area and see if it will invert. If not, let your gecko stand in about and inch of warm sugar water for about 20 minutes. (Use LOTS of sugar!) If this does not help, then apply a generous amount of Karo (corn) syrup or honey to the hemipenis and vent area.

If none of these work immediately, repeat each procedure for a few times a day fo 3 days... if after that amount of time his prolapsed hemipenis will still not invert, there is not much else that you can do without a veterinarian.
-----
Marcia McGuiness
Golden Gate Geckos
www.goldengategeckos.com

pbobek May 28, 2004 12:02 PM

Hello

Thanks for the info.
But they are already hidden.:D (that's a big uff...)
I'd like to now how I can prevent this from hapennig in the future. And how I can specify which one (of the one you listed -are there any other possibilities) was the cause of this.

Best regards,
Piotrek

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