about how old is my leo?

[Sbrace52]

I just weighed her and it came out to .8oz which converts to around 22 or 23 grams... by this weight what is a rough estimate of how old she is and from what I can tell she is either a female or to young to tell.. is she big enough to tell the sex?

 

[M_surinamensis]

Cut it in half and count the rings.

 

[GrimmyX15]

Pffff. -__-


Well, the avatar of your leo look like she could be probably 8 month but so tell me how long you have her?

 

[Sbrace52]

only had her for about a week... i was think she was about 6 months

 

[Gecko_Jay09]

yeah she looks about 6-8 months old and i would say you'd be able to sex her by now. hope this helps

 

[Sbrace52]

Yeah I figured so but I wasnt sure, so I guess she is a female. She is a chain store gem, eats like crazy, very healyhy, nice looking SHT with about a 40% Carrot tail... it was an awesome find

 

[Tommy13b]

if shes 23g she should be between 2-3 months.

 

[Enigmatic_Reptiles]

I agree with Tommy. If you have a 6-8 month old gecko that is 23g you are not doing something right or the gecko is nor healthy. However, M_surinamensis is right...thats the best way to know their age.

 

[LeoGirl575]

Cut it in half and count the rings.

? Am I missing something?

 

[Sbrace52]

they mean like a tree lol if you cut down a tree you can count the wood rings to see the age... The leo is very healthy so i supose she is young

 

[LeoGirl575]

lol I thought they meant to count the rings on the tail.

 

[M_surinamensis]

Growth rates can vary dramatically between individuals based on the conditions they have been kept in and their diet- raw caloric intake and the nutritional breakdown. To the point where it is difficult bordering on impossible to determine age based on size with any real degree of accuracy.

Kept cooler, fed less frequently or with low levels of the nutrients required for it- a gecko can grow quite slowly.

Kept warmer, fed more frequently and on foods that are high in calories and loaded with calcium and protein, the metabolic rate will rev up substantially and the animals can be pushed to adult size in a relatively short period of time. It's known as power feeding and while it is not as common with leopard geckos as it is with some other species, it's possible.

The growth rates that you will find published- or that people will mention in threads like this one, are generally going to be the ideal, healthy maintenance kind of timeline. Individual animals can shift pretty significantly outside of it depending on how they have been kept. What kind of impact these conditions have had on their long term health and well being can vary- animals that you picked up from an unknown source which may have been underfed can often (not always of course) be put on a healthier track and brought back into line with normal, it just takes a bit of effort and time and manipulation of the diet and conditions.

So when an animal comes from an unknown source or with an unknown history... you can't really accurately answer the question of "How old?" based on the available information of how big it is.

As of now though... that little one could use a fecal exam, a warm hide and a rich diet. In that order.

 

[Sbrace52]

what do you mean a warm hide? she has a warm hide lol... It really sucks where I live because the closest Herp Vet is over and hour away but I guess if there is an emergency I can go up there and once a year for a check up. I gut load and dust all my feeders and I feed every day with crickets and mealworms and for snacks I give waxworms and my leo is a very good eater. and I keep my temps between 90 and 94 usually like 92.6 or so

 

[geckoboa]

I agree, 6-8 months aounds a little malnourished for that age. Probably 3-4 months old.

 

[thegeckoguy23]

Honstly I think this is something not to bring to gecko forums even though it could help because thats something you should personly have asked the owner previous owner.

 

[Sbrace52]

i had no contact with the breeder