Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I came home to find one of my cresteds (a tailess female) dead! She was fine this morning, but now I found her on the cage floor dead. My other cresteds are perfectly fine, as far as I can tell. I'm going to schedule a vet appointed in the morning! I'm in shock right now and really bummed out. I came hopme and found one of them just clinging to a leaf right over her daed body, just staring at her.

Right now they're in a 18x18x24 screen cage with a full schefflera plant and corkbark. Nothing really fancy. They're all fed crickets (dusted with minerall occasionally), silkworms, and CGD with babyfood and misted every day.

She was one of the new additions and I've had her since june. My original geckos are fine and so are the others I got her with (kept in the same cage then, too). She wasn't gravid, she ate well and always prefered live food over babyfood (unlike her roomates).

There is, I noticed a pretty big fleck of dried reddish brown liquid that's looks like dried blood, but I've inspected all of them and there are no signs of fighting or bleeding anywhere. I do know that whater that spot is, it just showed up there today, because I cleaned the cage last night.

She's full on rigormortis right now and stiff as a board and her eyes are sunken in as hell I'm just curious how long she's been dead. I'm not sure a necropsy would be any help right now, but I'll ask my vet what he thinks.

Any suggestions or clues? I know it's pretty hard to say, but any help is appreciated. Thanks.

It really could be any number of things, from disease to ingesting something which blocked her.

The larger point is this - I'll bet you are wishing you had practiced better quarantine, right? Then you wouldn't have to worry about all your other geckos - especially your originals.

Don't feel bad - I think if people are honest, many would tell you that they preach one thing about quarantine and practice another. Then a death happens, and people get worried. I guess we all learn sooner or later that good quarantine practices are invaluable.

Enough of my soap box. Sorry to hear about your gecko - hope the vets can help you discover the cause and eliminate the source.

Good luck and keep us up to date.
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Monte Meyer
Powergeckos
Email

Refrigerate the dead gecko to bring to your vet. Freezing can destroy alot of clues to why it died. It could have been a fight, as the geckos would have cleaned themselves off by the time you found them, or it could have been disease, blockage or parasites. A necropsy will be able to determine the cause of death. Sorry for your loss.

Actually I DID quarantine them for over a over a month and had my vet look at them, so I don't know what you're trying to say.

quarenteeing should be done for three months minimum, and several vet examinations and testings, as many diseases have long incubation periods.

No offense intended - I was just pointing out the value of a long quarantine.

Maybe I'm just paranoid about that sort of thing. LOL

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Monte Meyer
Powergeckos
Email

cute picture, nice quality as well.