Could I have done more?

[mrdonovan37]

I just had to euthanize my first leo, and it is really killing me. I have 5 and hate to think that I may have been doing something wrong, or had missed something. I adopted her from an owner who had stopped caring for her at all, along with a cagemate, about 6 months ago. She ate okay at first, then once it began getting colder started getting skinnier, and only really going for mealworms. I separated her from her cagemate to see if it would help her get better nutrients, but she just didn't respond. I hoped now that summer is here and there isn't such a fight against ambient air temperatures that she would recover and fatten back up, like the others have all done, but she only got worse. I had been giving her slurry, which she responded to okay, but without much weight gain. Her most recent shed she couldn't get any of it off herself, even with hiding in the moist hide and a warm bath. She also tried to eat a mealworm but couldn't manage it, just kept spitting it out. After checking on her today and seeing that her jaw looked funny I decided to put her to sleep. I had been holding out hope that she would start putting the weight back on slowly, but she is so skinny already, and with the addition of the jaw change last night I decided it was enough for her to have to have gone through. (I feed all of my geckos the same calcium dusted crickets and mealworms, and the others are all fat and healthy... they all even have trays of a bit of extra calcium to eat.)

I guess my question is did I miss something obvious that could have been wrong? I thought parasites, but she was caged with another leo her entire life and that one is huge and has a voracious appetite and is a nice fat lady, no signs of inability to digest or process nutrients. They were both about 8 years old when I got them, according to the guy who gave them up, so maybe age had taken its toll on her? She had lost toes from when he owned her and she had no moist hide and had a history of bad sheds. I guess I'm just feeling terrible at having lost her and am second guessing myself but she didn't seem to have any fight left in her.

 

[acpart]

I have lost 2 adults this season for no good reason. It happens sometimes. The only thing I can think of (which I don't think would have saved her life) would have been to dip your finger in water, then dip it in calcium and rub some on her jaws. That may have prevented MBD (which is what sounds like what happened with the jaw change), though, as I said that may not have saved her. At least you gave her a better life for awhile than she was having.

Aliza

 

[mrdonovan37]

I figured MBD had starting setting in, and with her lack of interest in food that was just a bad combination. I have kind of come to terms with the fact that she wasn't healthy to begin with, and that at least I gave her 6 months of all the mealworms she could eat (she would eat crickets sometimes but never really had the coordination to catch them, but mealworms and superworms she feasted on... thats a big factor in the decision too, as much as she loved the critters, to have not eaten them this time I knew something was wrong.)

Its just the first leo I have lost, so its hitting me hard.