Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've hatched six geckos now and this is the only baby that hasn't done well. It took a while to get out of the egg and has always seemed weak and hesitant to walk(though it does). It's always had trouble climbing things. It has been eating CGD just like the rest of the babies. I've never seen it pale like CGs normally get during the day, it's always been dark brown, until recently and now it has been patchy olive and brown. Its is very weak now and very thin. Last time it shed, it did not even try to get the shed off. I don't know what to do other than to just make sure it stays hydrated. The baby is about a month and a half old. I don't have money for a vet, but I don't think a vet would help much now. Any advice? I don't know what to do!
-----
www.freewebs.com/snakesandstuff

My menagerie
3.4 Ball Pythons 1.1 Amazon Tree Boas 1.0 Dumerils Boa 1.1 Kenyan Sand Boas 2.0 Corn Snake 1.2 Black Rat Snakes 1.1.6 Bearded Dragons 1.1.5 Crested Geckos 1.1.4 Eastern Box Turtles 0.3 Chickens 2.1 Cats 1.1 Ferrets plus lots of mice and feeder insects and my Sweety-bird Sydney

something I'd forgotten in my last post, this baby bites! ever since it has hatched it will open up it's mouth real wide when you pick it up, until now, I guess it's too weak.
-----
www.freewebs.com/snakesandstuff

My menagerie
3.4 Ball Pythons 1.1 Amazon Tree Boas 1.0 Dumerils Boa 1.1 Kenyan Sand Boas 2.0 Corn Snake 1.2 Black Rat Snakes 1.1.6 Bearded Dragons 1.1.5 Crested Geckos 1.1.4 Eastern Box Turtles 0.3 Chickens 2.1 Cats 1.1 Ferrets plus lots of mice and feeder insects and my Sweety-bird Sydney

He's weak and scared so it's not uncommon for him to want to bite you. Try upping his calcium, get some pure calcium to add to his CGD, not calcium w/ D3, just pure calcium. Keep him in a cage by himself. I would definately recommend seperating your breeders until you have the means to bring a sick animal to the vet. Your female may be lacking calcium and the baby could have gotten problems from that, in that case, your female may run into some serious problems as well if you keep breeding her right now. Add the pure calcium to your females diet as well. But seriously, stop breeding until you can bring these animals to the vet if they need it. Things can always go wrong, even more so when you are breeding the animals.

A month or two ago, I might have been able to get a vet, but I bought a car, paid tuition, got insurance, etc. all very recently. I have had the breeders separated because the last clutch she laid(the one with the sick baby) had an undercalcified shell. If I give her a dish of Calcium in the cage, will she lick it up that way? I will also add more cal to the adults and babies food. I do keep all my babies in separate cages.
A year or two ago I asked about adding Calcium to CGD and was told that I should have done more research before getting geckos because I should know not to add extra Calcium to CGD. It seems as though opinion and even fact are constantly changing. The geckos are the same, I guess it's the people that are changing.
Unfortunately, the baby died a few days after my first post.
I hate winter.
-----
www.freewebs.com/snakesandstuff

My menagerie
3.4 Ball Pythons 1.1 Amazon Tree Boas 1.0 Dumerils Boa 1.1 Kenyan Sand Boas 2.0 Corn Snake 1.2 Black Rat Snakes 1.1.6 Bearded Dragons 1.1.5 Crested Geckos 1.1.4 Eastern Box Turtles 0.3 Chickens 2.1 Cats 1.1 Ferrets plus lots of mice and feeder insects and my Sweety-bird Sydney

Ok, understandable, things always come up with money. That's good that you at least seperated the pair though. It is possible that the female will lick the calcium up, some have been known to, but not as commonly as say a Leopard Gecko. Just make sure you get pure calcium like I said, not the calcium with D3. Some people can act like jerks, even if they THINK they know what they are talking about, add PURE calcium to your CGD for your breeders. There will always be alot of different opinions, but my guess would be that they see CGD as a complete diet and you don't have to add anything else to a Crested Geckos diet so you shouldn't add anything to the CGD, but a little more calcium will not do anything but better, it would be different if you were adding calcium with other stuff added, just make sure it's just pure calcium and nothing else.

I would not suggest putting calcium powder in a dish in the cage for the same reason people shouldn't feed CGD without adding water. Hydration is important in absorbing all these nutrients, and I don't see just calcium powder doing much.

Adding calcium to CGD is NOT recommended, because over supplementing can be just as bad as under supplementing. There are however, special CGD formula which you can order online with a relatively safe, but extra amount of calcium mixed in. If you go to the Repashy homepage and click on the "store" link you can see a list of Repashy distributors. I normally use Gecko Ranch, and am fairly sure she carries the formulas with extra calcium added.

Yes, over supplimenting certain things can cause problems, adding pure calcium is not going to cause any problems. As long as you give the cage a good spray, especially at night, and the gecko is eating the CGD with all the water in that, your not going to have a problem with the gecko dehydrating either.

I'm sorry if it sounded like I was trying to challenge your post, but I was offering more options(that are probably safer). Though it does sound like you are trying to say that geckos cannot over-dose on calcium, which they can.
From this link: http://www.forums.repashy.com/rhacodactylus-ciliatus-discussion/4110-question-about-calcium.html
"Too much calcium, even without too much D-3, becomes a binder for essential vitamins and nutrients. Vitamin A in particular. The calcium blocks the absorbtion of these vitamins. In many geckos, especially leopards, the vitamin A problem can be seen with too much calcium in the materialization of eye deformities.. one big eye or small eye... Too much calcium can nearly completely block the absorbtion of vitamin A, which has visible effects..... there could also be other non visible effects from it blocking vitamin A and other vitamins, like reduced hatch rates (which are also seen with too much calcium)

If you look at calcium powder, you can picture the "Got Milk" commercial. It is a powder that will absorb moisture out of the body, and if it coats the lining in the stomach with crust, the animal can't absorb anything. It also neutralizes digestive acids....

Have you ever heard of Tums? Look at the ingredients.. it is nearly pure calcium carbonate. A 500 mg (half a gram)tablet is strong enough to eliminate acid indegestion in a 150 pound human! so what do you think that eating a bowl of calcium that size (you said your gecko ate similar amount) will do? Lets say you have a 30 gram gecko eating a half a gram of calcium, or the same amount as a tums tablet.... hmmm So that means the gecko is eating about 1.5% its body weight in calcium.... So if you weigh 150 pounds, what do you think would happen if you ate 2.25 pounds of calcium in a sitting? LOL Do you think you would absorb your dinner? or even have room to eat it?
Most prescription drugs warn that if you eat calcium or other antacids that your body might not absorb the drug properly.... or anything for that matter.. ....." quoted from a post by Allen Repashy. I know he's not a vet, but I'm sure he knows quite a few and has years of experience.

Ok, I'm not saying that you can not overdose the calcium, but if you add a little extra calcium to the geckos that obviously are in need of a little extra calcium, it is not going to hurt anything. I'm not saying to give the calcium to all the geckos, and add a ton of it, I said to add a little bit of calcium to the geckos which are in need of it.

And all I was saying is there is a pre-measured out and tested safe way to do it through the CGD products that have more calcium added. You take issue with that?

Thankyou for posting,I can see the pros and cons of adding calcium to CGD and I think I will only add a small amount to the mother's food and the food of the sibling to the one that was sick.
-----
www.freewebs.com/snakesandstuff

My menagerie
3.4 Ball Pythons 1.1 Amazon Tree Boas 1.0 Dumerils Boa 1.1 Kenyan Sand Boas 2.0 Corn Snake 1.2 Black Rat Snakes 1.1.6 Bearded Dragons 1.1.4 Crested Geckos 1.1.4 Eastern Box Turtles 0.3 Chickens 2.1 Cats 1.1 Ferrets plus lots of mice and feeder insects and my Sweety-bird Sydney