Ok, I do see what dark is saying and I do agree to an extent. You have to remember that alot of the guys/gals that are posting on here are pretty much Rhacodactylus newbies. Just a couple issues that I wanted to touch base on...
The feeding issue:
If you put crested diet or babyfood or 2 week cycle crickets in a tank with the baby cresteds, they will eat. Think of it this way - You are in a house/yard/whatever, and you magically have this bowl of mixed food (Crested diet) with ground up chicken, steak, beans, potatoes and misc vegetables appear. Now, you check it out and it doesn't really look that good right, cause it is pureed. Well, you probably won't eat it at first. After four or five days of not eatting and the bowl is replaced everyday in the same spot, you would be like...well I am starving, so I will eat. You eat it, it tastes pretty bad and you think, sheesh - that was aweful but at least I have food in my stomach now. You might repeat the process, after three days you decide to eat, then after two days, you get the idea. Now, the second is a bowl (baby food) of fruit mixed and mashed up, well it tastes better, even though it is not as healthy for you, but better than the puree dinner. You will eat more of that. Now the third one(crickets) is the Roast Chicken...*Homer voice* Mmmmm chiiickken. You get the idea. As dark said, patience is key! The will to survive is the most powerful instinct that an animal has, humans included.
Shedding:
Never attempt to pull the shed off the geckos unless you can obviously see them struggling, like after a day of not cleaning off the shedding. Spray them directly or put the rough piece of velcro in there, the stuff with sticky tape on one side. They will use this to rub off the stuck skin. I will try to get a small video of this taking place and put it on my website. If you are constantly having problems with geckos and sheds, you are not paying atention to the humidity levels. Now I am not saying keep them at 85% humidity ALL the time, just make sure that you get it up to that level at least once a day, and that is usually obtained with a good spray down or two. I though about slapping a guy in the back of the head for peeling skin off of a baby crested at one of the "pet stores". He meant well, but didn't realize that the crested was right at the begining of the shed and just needed a little humidity in the tank to help it along. The crested was not happy and kept trying to bite him when he was trying to peel the skin off it. These guys are not Tokays, they are not evil and like to draw blood just for the fun of it. If your geckos are trying to bite you for somethinig you are doing... chances are, they don't like what you are doing or you are not doing something right. I went into the store managers office and educated them on this. I was very polite and made my case. I know and have accepted the fact that they are not going to stop getting certain herps and in the long run, just teaching these guys about cresteds imparticular will at least help make these poor guys "store" lives a little better. OK, off my soapbox.
All in all, I have certain older males & females that have been SO stubborn that it took almost a month to get them eatting like a normal crested should. I have also had some that didn't clean a shed completely, but after modifying the humidity levels...problems taken care of. Keep asking the questions if you are having problems, do some research first before posting a repeat question also. They have MANY great posts on here that touch base about many different subjects. If you can't find something from old posts ask the questions! Maybe someone knows what you are struggling with and will help or put a link in here to an old post that will help you with your problems. Thanks and sorry for the long posts.
Charlie
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Charlies Geckos
