tobie737373
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My lepoard gecko is getting on in age (at least 13-14 years). He's nice and plump, but I swear his front legs are getting smaller and smaller. They look atrophied and semi lumpy/uneven muscle distribution. He's been laying with them behind him (pictures included). He lays in all kinds of weird positions, so I thought it was just a cute new habit or preference at first. Well, now I'm thinking it's part of a bigger problem or causing a problem. It's probably not related, but he's had a black swollen tumor-ish looking thing on his lower right eye lid for a while.
For the first like 10ish years of his life he was not fed NEARLY as often as he should've been, and when he was, I think they heavily overfed him since he was starved in between. They never gut loaded the crickets or anything, so he's only been on loaded crickets for the past year or two while I've had him. Many years ago he got lost in the house for what I want to say was a year. We found him skinny as heck under the fridge. After that, he spent most of his time alone in a dark room where he recieved very little human interaction except for a split second during his rare feedings (until I took him from my parents of course).
This all sounds bad, but his home before that was abysmal. They cut off his toes for fun and made him drop his tail once, or cut it off too. I'm not sure which, because it was healed by the time we got him and I was told this by my brother who was friends with them. Anyways, I'm sure he was neglected and abused in all manners possible for his first year or two of life (I don't know how long they had him). I'm sure there are long term effects from his rough past, but I don't know if it's related to my current issue.
Nowadays, he's pretty active and relatively stress free considering his poor living conditions (currently working on that so please don't hate). That being said, he does go for the occasional glass surf, but usually only with clear reason. There's no humidity control or formal temperature gradient. He has a heating pad under the enclosed hide, but I don't know what temperature it is because you can't adjust it. Don't worry though, I've felt the sand and it's pleasantly warm, not hot. I don't use the red light (I'm assuming it's a UV light) that's attached to the cage cause I've read that the light can stress them out/harm their eyes. Small piece of additional history, my parents would occasionally turn it on, and each time I think it was on for at least an hour, but usually several.. I think.. Very sporadically/randomly used and to top it off he didn't have calcium in his diet... Anyhow, the cage is next to a window so there is somewhat of an uncontrolled temp gradient, but his heating pad is on that side, so it's not foolproof in the winter. Being next to a window, he has plenty of natural light so I figured he gets his UV through the blinds, but apparently UVB can't penetrate glass let alone glass and blinds.. Genius me..
He has a great appetite and can really get around when he wants to, and I think that's saying something since he has to run in sand (again, working on the environment). He spends most of the day outside his hide just laying around. I think he sheds every 2-3 weeks, but I'll start paying more attention.. I can't think of anything else relevant. Other than the way he's been laying, he hasn't changed his behavior. There have been no changes to his environment/surroundings recently or for the past couple years I've had him.
I have no clue what's going on and I'm not sure what to do. I also don't know of anywhere that I could take him for a checkup.
Please let me know if you have ideas about what's going on, because I'm not finding anything on Google..
There's a picture where he has a skin helmet from a couple months ago (you're welcome for the cute, and rest assured, I helped him get it off) and you can see how his front legs used to look. I could insert more pre/post pics from other angles to highlight the difference, but that's beside the point. It may not be as obvious to y'all since you don't stare at him every day, but I noticed his legs at least a week ago and I know I'm not crazy (in this respect). The rest of the pictures outside of skin helmet were taken today. I tried my best to capture the little tumor type thing on his eye. The picture is with his eye 'closed' and I've included an edited version as well.
P.S. I say 'he' but I don't know the gender for sure
P.P.S. So sorry if this is wordy, I wanted to include all potentially relevant details.
For the first like 10ish years of his life he was not fed NEARLY as often as he should've been, and when he was, I think they heavily overfed him since he was starved in between. They never gut loaded the crickets or anything, so he's only been on loaded crickets for the past year or two while I've had him. Many years ago he got lost in the house for what I want to say was a year. We found him skinny as heck under the fridge. After that, he spent most of his time alone in a dark room where he recieved very little human interaction except for a split second during his rare feedings (until I took him from my parents of course).
This all sounds bad, but his home before that was abysmal. They cut off his toes for fun and made him drop his tail once, or cut it off too. I'm not sure which, because it was healed by the time we got him and I was told this by my brother who was friends with them. Anyways, I'm sure he was neglected and abused in all manners possible for his first year or two of life (I don't know how long they had him). I'm sure there are long term effects from his rough past, but I don't know if it's related to my current issue.
Nowadays, he's pretty active and relatively stress free considering his poor living conditions (currently working on that so please don't hate). That being said, he does go for the occasional glass surf, but usually only with clear reason. There's no humidity control or formal temperature gradient. He has a heating pad under the enclosed hide, but I don't know what temperature it is because you can't adjust it. Don't worry though, I've felt the sand and it's pleasantly warm, not hot. I don't use the red light (I'm assuming it's a UV light) that's attached to the cage cause I've read that the light can stress them out/harm their eyes. Small piece of additional history, my parents would occasionally turn it on, and each time I think it was on for at least an hour, but usually several.. I think.. Very sporadically/randomly used and to top it off he didn't have calcium in his diet... Anyhow, the cage is next to a window so there is somewhat of an uncontrolled temp gradient, but his heating pad is on that side, so it's not foolproof in the winter. Being next to a window, he has plenty of natural light so I figured he gets his UV through the blinds, but apparently UVB can't penetrate glass let alone glass and blinds.. Genius me..
He has a great appetite and can really get around when he wants to, and I think that's saying something since he has to run in sand (again, working on the environment). He spends most of the day outside his hide just laying around. I think he sheds every 2-3 weeks, but I'll start paying more attention.. I can't think of anything else relevant. Other than the way he's been laying, he hasn't changed his behavior. There have been no changes to his environment/surroundings recently or for the past couple years I've had him.
I have no clue what's going on and I'm not sure what to do. I also don't know of anywhere that I could take him for a checkup.
Please let me know if you have ideas about what's going on, because I'm not finding anything on Google..
There's a picture where he has a skin helmet from a couple months ago (you're welcome for the cute, and rest assured, I helped him get it off) and you can see how his front legs used to look. I could insert more pre/post pics from other angles to highlight the difference, but that's beside the point. It may not be as obvious to y'all since you don't stare at him every day, but I noticed his legs at least a week ago and I know I'm not crazy (in this respect). The rest of the pictures outside of skin helmet were taken today. I tried my best to capture the little tumor type thing on his eye. The picture is with his eye 'closed' and I've included an edited version as well.
P.S. I say 'he' but I don't know the gender for sure
P.P.S. So sorry if this is wordy, I wanted to include all potentially relevant details.
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