Reptile & Amphibian Forums

As the majority of you know, captive bred leaf tailed geckos are extreamly hard to get a hold of. I am trying to establish a breeding group of geckos so captive bred animals are virtually out of the question becuase large numbers can not be found.

So my question is does anyone have secrets for working with wild caught animals? I have a friend that hand picks the geckos when they come in so I get top of the line specimens but keeping them that way seems to be difficult. While some seem to do well, others quickly loose weight ect.

I belive that my biggest problem is properly medicating individuals... does anyone have specific guidlines for how they de-worm there imports? I noticed that pancure is dirt cheep but the problem is that is comes in pills for dogs... so what? You crush it up? Then what? How much does a gecko get, does anyone have a doseage tabel?

This is great help, thanks to all who respond,

Craig

gereptiles.250free.com

Well what i do with my leaftails when they come in is treat the RIGHT AWAY! I use flagilin, or however you spell it. The thing with flagilin is, is that they have to eat when they take it. i usually keep the set up very simple and put 1-2 crickets in with 1/2 eyedrop of flagilin on each. when the gecko eats it he will then have the flagilin in his system killing the parasites. i do this once a week for about 3 weeks. there might be better ways on de-worming but this has worked very well for me.

josh

Josh-
Are you referring to Flagyl? If so, it does not kill worms. It kills some bacteria as well as some ciliates and flagellates. My best advice would be to get a good fresh fecal to a qualified reptile vet. If the original poster is serious about investing a chunk of money to establish a breeding colony, a few more bucks to get fecals run and get qualified reptile medical advice is well worth it.

Panacur is a decent wormer and comes in powder and a liquid suspension form. Levamisole is more expensive, but does not share some of the problem issues that Panacur does. Ivermectin is also very good. Proper dosages can be obtained form your vet.

I also quarantine and never treat them right away,I give them a couple days to adjust and get comfortable,I don't think the need the added stress of being handled and having medication injected into the back of their throat after being dehydrated and shipped from madagascar in little containers.

See i dealt directly with an importer, and i ordered 6 fimbriatus. i waited one week, and within that week they were all dead, because i didnt treat them for parasites right away. they were all properly hydrated, ate good, but 1 by 1 they all started dying. its because 5 days b4 i got them they were all living in the wild. being expoted and imported parasites grow from stress and you have to treat them rightaway upon arival. We all know importers dont treat for any parasites, so i feel that if you worm them right away they will live. if you wait tooo long with fresh imports with no treatment, they will die. thanks
josh
p.s.- thats just how i do things, others might have luck doing there methods, but i feel they need to be wormed upon arrival.

well, honestly i dont treat my animals unless they start showing signs of sickness/weakness, and my animals almost always survive. granted stress levels can make things worse and all, but you cant just say not treating fresh imports results in dead geckos. that's very far from the truth. in the wild they survive with parasites, its not the parasites job to kill the host, just feed off of them as long as possible.

ive taken a few parisitology courses in the past couple of years and also delt with some hands on situations w/ reptiles. i had some ****-***$ pet store owners that told me that the reason why my chameleon or gecko died was because he probably had parasites and the stress that "you" brought upon him didnt react well w/ his "wild caughtness". now that was when i was like ten yrs old--i have nothing against pet stores, as a matter of fact the pet store owners are doin the right thing by sparking an interest. But the bottom line is, if some one is tryin to sell you somthin, there advise should only be takin lightly. if you order five leaftails from some one and they all die, ofcourse theyre gonna give you some crazy answer this way you ll buy more. 9 times out of 10, if any reptile dies in some ones possesion, they blame the INDEPENDENT variable--which they have no control over. but in reality their[geckos] environment(food, water, temp) is the only thing that matters because parasites are not "desinged" to kill their hosts---it would be pointless! parasitism is the most common lifestyle on the face of the earth.

So what your saying is that my fims died because i didnt have them properly set up? i dont think so, i have been dealing with leaftails for quite awile, and i know what i have to do to keep them alive. all i am saying is that i feel when you get very fresh imports somebody has to treat them upon arrival. ive had bad luck with them all doing great for 2 days and then just starting to die. why do you think some distributers treat them with panacur b4 they ship there animals, because parasites are going to grow, and they dont want anything getting out of contol.
josh

well im just sayin that parasites can be the "contributor" in the rapid decline of a leaftails death, but if theyre eatin and drinkin they should pull through nine times out of ten. internal parasites usually only overrun their hosts if their environmental needs arent met, whether in the wild or in captivity.

most parasites that harm geckos dont really "grow" either. they have multiple stages in their life cycle, about two or three times as many stages as insects do.

I get panacur from the vet in liquid form.

It may not be the fact that the geckos have parasites but your husbandry techniques as to why the geckos are getting sick. If you are getting the best of the best imports and they are getting sick I think it may be something else than parasites. If you are able to aquire good imports they usually seem to acclimate pretty easily but granted I have only kept one species. Just something to think about. I don't mean to accuse you are anything just trying to bring up some other possiblities.
-Matt

i have five wild caught leaftails, and all of them but one were in bad shape when i had aquired them. i hadnt ever treated any of them for any kind of parasites or anything. when i used to get wild caught chameleons i would check out what was goin on in their feces with my microscope. i used to have a little parasite/parasite egg key but i lost it. SOME animals might need to be dewormed or treated for whatever else, but for the most part its not that important. if an animal is well fed and properly hydrated internal parasites probably wont cause any harm.

i would agree, i've had very good luck with several species ( except for satanics) without using any type of treatments apon arrival. as stated, lots of food, and tons of water is what is most important ( in my opinion)

...shaking head...
-----
Ben

OH where to go from here....Pretty much everything has been said that needs to be said, only it bits-n-pieces. TRUE: Parasites intention is to NOT KILL THE HOST, what's the point in that b/c host dies=parasite dies. That being said, proper husbandry is the key. Maintaining proper hydration and nutrition is the paramount mission for anybody to acclimate WC uros.
I've noticed that lately some of the dealers have been advertising their gex as "treated for possible parasites", seriously, anybody who's taken a entry level Parasit. class knows that to find a wild animal (older than a day old hatchling) WITHOUT any form of parasites is a truely REMARKABLE find. Panacur is the drug of choice for these "possible infection", and is effective in the treatment of Nematodes (roundworms), however, it is NOT EFFECTIVE IN THE TREATMENT OF COCCIDIA. Coccidia a protozoal parasite that invade the epithelial cells of the intestine. They don't necessarily "feed off their host", they're just free-loading in the cells. Subsequently, these cells are rendered useless for the absorption of nutrients. There are medications that are effective for treatment of coccidia, HOWEVER, these are not as forgiving as Panacur. In many cases the side-effects are more damaging to the gex than the coccidia themselves. Coccidia thrive in stressful situations, i.e., DON"T STRESS THE ANIMALS. I haven't treated one of my gex for coccidia and they're doing fine, they also live in my basement and don't see me (or any other human) for more than ten minutes a day (on average).
In closing (hehehe), parasites are just part of the package. Yes, they're an undesirable component, but they don't care. The only times that parasites become a worry are during high stress (shipping, handling, depletion of nutrients), and if they are becoming secondarily infected due to poor husbandry practices (not removing the poo). Sorry for the length...
Sean

yeah, in the past ive treated some of my w/c chameleons and day geckos for coccidia--with albon--and you do have to be more accurate and precise with the dosages then you would with over the counter stuff. Coccidea are kind of like mosquitos though, they can build up a tolerance(against treatment) over generations. And "STRESS"(the basic essentials not being met) can leave the window open for it to take over the animals body and drive it into the ground. The key is to treat freshly imported animals like babies because of their possible rapid decline in health. But I mean, if you import leaftails in mass quantities of like 10 or more at a time, then you will have to deal with treating for protozoans like that a whole lot more often. And most of the time, like you said earlier, improper dosages will probably do more harm then good. all im saying is that the most important thing for a freshly imported leaftail is water, and then food. And if the thing doesnt come around then maybe a fecal exam is necessary.