Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Me and my boyfriend were asked to take a trio of these geckos (giant day geckos) from our friend who hasn't been taking proper care of them. They seem to all have good body weight, but one has some adhearing shed that apparently has been on her for weeks. I have sprayed her profusly and even bought a commercial product to help with it (its a zoo-med product). I sprayed it on her then carefully used a q tip to try and remove some of the shed. I know their skin is very delicate so I did not want to do too much. It worked a little bit, there is still some left though, and I don't know what to do. Any ideas? Some of the geckos also have some gray areas in their skin and their digits look a little bit messed up. Is this from not having proper humidity? How much exactly do they need? Do I need a humid area or will daily spraying with water suffice? We have plants to put in their terrarium, they are mother-in-law tongues. Are these good? As far as diet goes I'm pretty certain they need crickets but do they need fruit baby food also? And lastly what are their temp requirements? do I need a heat lamp and a UVB bulb? Any advice would be great as I am used to Leopard geckos/fat tails and rhacodactylus species but am excited to get started with a new species! Thanks in advance.

Ok, lots of stuff there in your email. Hopefully I'll get it all covered.

High humidity is best, at least 80% if you can. I spray mine 2x a day in the morning and evening. What type of substrate are you using? Try something that holds the water when spraying, that will help with humidity issues. As far as shedding, it seems like you were doing everything right. Try keeping the humidity up, and the q-tip with warm water helps with removing. I'd try it again if you can. The gray patches, I'm not sure what you mean. Could you attach any photos? It could be ripped skin that just needs to heal. Or it could be issues with the digits from a bad shed, in which case you should really try to get the skin off.

They like a 95F basking spot. I use a flo light, Reptisun 5.0 is good for day geckos. Crickets are staple. They also like mealworms, but only supplement. Also, supplement with some peach baby food, or any other flavors you find, mine pretty much eat any fruit I put in there. Just try to stay away from banana and strawberry they have alot of phosphorus (i think that is the one, or potassium) anyway, it inhibits the absorption of calcium.

good luck!
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Lisa

1.0.0 P.m. grandis (Linus)
3.3.0 P. standingi (Kona and her 5 babies)
R.I.P. Toby (7/5/06) I miss you...

If the shedding is still bad, you can also make a "humidity chamber" out of a tupperware container. Make sure it's big enough, put a bamboo branch or a stick they can climb on in there and then get a hand towel and soak it in warm water, put it on the floor of the container. You can drill a few holes on top of the lid and place the gecko in there for an hour. Kinda like a sauna. I've never done it with my day gecko's but I've done it for my chameleons. They don't like being in the small container, but it only took 1 hour in there and they got all the dry skin off the next day... Do you have any pictures of them??

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TFFF
(Tootie Freakin' Fruity Feenie)

your grandis is beautiful!
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Lisa

1.0.0 P.m. grandis (Linus)
3.3.0 P. standingi (Kona and her 5 babies)
R.I.P. Toby (7/5/06) I miss you...