Reptile & Amphibian Forums

2 hours ago, my female normal looked like someone had wrapped her with grey paper, she was obviously in shed, and the loose skin could be seen hanging off the body in some places

I went out, and now, she's back to normal! Has she already shed? Or are they like snakes, turning back to normal before finally shedding? If she's shed, dang, would sure feel disappointed that i missed it.
another question is that how do i check she's shed completely, especially around the tail tip, eyes and toe regions. I've been looking as hard as posssible for any remaining skin, but cant see any. what should i look for?

one last question is with regards to vermaculite. How would i ensure that it is clean before i put it in my humid hides? ie. bacteria , parasite free?

drey

Sorry, you missed her shedding. But you will have many more opportunities to see her shed.

I pick Kalypso up and she sits still and I look very closely. If you don't see any miscolored spots then its safe to say that she's shed fully. But make sure you inspect toes more then anything.

Kalypso didn't shed her toes correctly and on her back right foot she's only got 1 full toe (this happened before I got her).
-----
1.1 mali uro's-Ares and Apollo
1.2 saharan uro's-Orion and Iris
1.2 bearded dragon-Hades and Draco
0.2 leo gecko-Kalypso
0.3 tokaye gecko-Sid Vicious
1.0 tarantula-Peter Parker
0.2 dog-cheeka
0.2 zebra finch-beeps
0.2 african gray parrot-keya
1.0 red headed parrot-pancho
0.3 Fish (sorry no names for them)

Looks like you can't find anything then your leo has shed successfully

Vercumlie is fine, if its that white stuff, i cant' remember off hand. Most people use it as their egg medium so it'd better be safe

that white stuff is perlite

well..i've inspected my leo's toes, and both of them seem rather grey with black dots as compared to the rest of their body, but no apparent sign of loose skin? Is that normal??
i had been misting them in addition to the humid hides, so i hope they've shed well.

Do yourself and your animals a huge favor and pick up a decent magnifier, I prefer the type that you wear like a headband (Optivisor, etc.). You'll see any skin problems and also the real beauty of scalation, eye variations, things you never noticed before. I like vermiculite for hides, they will eat it but it seems to pass very well. If you just have a few, paper towel is good as long as its changed often. As Marcia at Golden Gate has experimented with and I had similar findings, the white background does keep your geckos' color brighter.

Geckos don't techinally "shead" they "molt." Molting is like sheading, but different from what snakes do. Geckos's don't slip their skins off or make them inside out, they rumb against rocks and the ground and with even claw and bite at old skin to pick it off. It should come off in a few large peices and lots of smaller peices. Make sure you have a humid hide. I had peoblems with skin on the under belly and the toes until I got a humid hide. Now I just make sure it is plenty mosit when I think my gex in near sheding time. You can tell because their colors become dull and grayish. My gex is an African-Fat tailed, a couson to leopard geckos (you can see him below,"mike" I noticed that when he is finished sheading the color of his bottem eyelip is almost white and it takes a few hours to return back to it's normal brownish color. You should beable to see and skin left behind after a molt and shouldn't try to pick it off. Sometimes I will help my gex along with his shed though why giving him gentle pets. He seems it like the peting anytime (as long has my hands arn't cold) and it helps break apart the first piecies of skin.

If you do find pieices of skin let over try giving them a warm shallow bath and getnly rubing the each or you can try a shed aid to rub into the skin. If you gex is fully grown he/she will probably shed once every two weeks or so, but I am not sure about this because I recently started keeping track of mine and he was under weigth at the time so he was sheding more then usual from puting on more weight.
-----
~Akira
1.0 African Fat-tailed Gecko
0.0.1 Leopard Gecko (hypo tangrine circle-back?)
0.0.2 Red Ear Slider

I like to take an upclose picture of my leo (my camera takes nice pictures) and then Inspect them on my computer. My camera takes images and bloats them up to about 20 times its size, So I can see anything, Example below:

-----