Hello from me and my rescues!

Hi all! After coming home with gecko number two and three, I thought maybe it was time to join a dedicated forum. It's always much more calming to have a friendly community to turn to in case something happens in the future!

We got our first gecko at the start of June. I had met up with the semi-local reptile rescue to adopt two hermit crabs, and there was this skinny little tailless fat-tailed gecko available for adoption at the event. It was love at first sight. I think I only convinced my husband because I had secretly been collecting supplies for one over the last couple of years, and was able to go home and set up the tank without needing to pick anything else up. (I'm devious. :main_evilgrin: )

He's about three and a half years old, and was even skinnier than the photos below when he was surrendered to the rescue. Unfortunately three days before the adoption event he dropped his tail. The staff of the rescue were ticked! They had just started to get some weight back on him, and then he goes and drops his tail for no reason after he had been fed for the day. I actually didn't realize how far he had come until I went to get photos together for this post. You see them every day and it's easy to miss any improvements. His color change and weight gain is so noticeable between then and now looking at pictures! It made me so happy. I've been calling him Blaze, after a horse in a Barbie game that my step-daughter had and that I totally honestly never-ever played. :main_yes:

Before

And two and a half months after


Before

And after


And he's such a ham!! I just adore him.






Well, back around the same time we adopted him, while going through some local Facebook classifieds, I saw a posting with these photos that made me sick. They had also been listed a month prior (April) in a clean but wet tank...



i didn't have any spare cash at the time, and they were never reposted. I couldn't stop thinking of them though so when I managed to get some extra pocket cash last week I sent the person a message hoping to get a rude "I sold them already" response, but the person still had them. I had to get them. I couldn't leave them like that! The tank was mostly clean when we picked them up, but they were on old Reptibark.

It's a male and female, supposedly now a year old, and who had been kept together in a 10 gallon tank. I was told the female has been regularly laying eggs for at least the last four months, probably since they were put in together. :main_angry: Honestly, I didn't ask a lot of questions. I was horrified by what I saw in that person's house. (Why they invited me in I don't know.) Nothing was being given proper care, and I was afraid I was going to loose it right there and be kicked out without rescuing these two.



We're in the process of building a new rack so there's room for the tanks, and getting their individual 20 gallons set up for them. I'll get photos of them and their new homes once everything is together. I'm not entirely sure if I'm going to keep them long term - we have a lot of pets at the moment - but like my husband keeps telling me, they're safe and we can at least rehab them for now. They are really nice little geckos and so cute! It's hard to say no to that.

And as for the other pets, we have a lot of cats (myself and hubby both are in furred animal rescue), a 135 gallon and 10 gallon hermit crab enclosure with 60-some crabs, a grey tree-frog that we found in our house a few winters ago, a Florida Brooks kingsnake we adopted from a friend, and a special needs amelanistic corn snake with spinal deformities that we adopted through the rescue. I also have fish, fiddler crabs and snails, and I breed Emperor Scorpions.

In those conditions and that small of a tail, make sure they dont have parasites! That's a pretty fast killer for geckos especially, hoping the best for the small one in the last photo, hope it's just food/malnutrition and not something more serious! So glad they have new homes. I have 4 rescues myself and I'm treating one for worms :main_yes:. Sadly her partner died from malnutrition and a bad respiratory infection, but I'm giving her the best fighting chance and I'm glad you're doing that for these guys!

There are so many reptiles in the pet trade, and so many get left to wither away to nothing because nobody reads up on them, or cares enough to give them attention.

Post updates! I would love to see progress on the conditions of the leopard geckos :main_thumbsup:

I really think their weight has more to do with them being underfed and also having no heat source whatsoever for the entire summer, probably longer. I also noticed she's missing parts of most of her toes.

He's already plumping up nicely and will eat anything I put in front of him, including superworms. She was looking better but then left me two eggs earlier this week, so she ended up looking worse than when she came home. She's so much smaller than the boys that she'll only take tinier food like mealworms, but she's eating like crazy. I'm going to get her some smaller crickets this weekend and see if she'll go after those.

Both of them look like they are in heaven, sprawled out on the warm end. She doesn't ever leave the heat but he's been wandering around and using all three hides throughout the day.

He also escaped his tank yesterday! I didn't know they could climb that well. I'm currently repainting all the screen lids and didn't think he could make it up the 8 inch gap, but sure enough I walked into the room in the morning and the tank was empty. There was a moment of panic where I thought my King Snake got out and had a snack, but he was locked in his tank with his "gimmee food" face and I found the little dude underneath the stand, safe and sound.