Leopard Gecko has twisted front legs and will not eat. Need help!

[apricohtyl]

Just as an initial announcement: I am taking him to the vet as soon as I can, but it may not be for a week or two. With that said, "Take him to a vet now!" need not be stated.

Warning: This is going to be long, but please read through. It is wordy, but I'm hoping to include as much useful detail as possible.


My gecko, Mr. Mann (6 months old or so), does not look to be in the best health. Below are a few images of him.

EDIT: working on pictures.
EDIT: here is a link to some pictures of Mr. Mann and his cage setup. As well as a link to videos of him walking.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/106074856@N06/ - Video gallery of him walking
http://imgur.com/a/LpsXB - picture gallery of cage setup and Mr. Mann



It looks like he might be a bit on the skinny side. But my bigger concern is his front legs. They are always turned palms up in the air and bent kind of toward his back. When he walks, he army crawls on his chest and elbows almost, and drags his forearms behind him. His front legs might be slightly deformed, but I'm not quite sure. I can gently position them in front of him when I'm playing with or holding him, there doesn't seem to be anything abnormal restricting his movement. And when I place his front legs in front of him, palms down on the ground, they look pretty normal (just a bit skinny).

But, when he walks it seems like he doesn't have the strength to pick up his arms, and bring them in front of him. As he lifts them and tries to bring them forward in front of him, they tremble and shake, and he can't turn his arm so the palm is facing down. Further, he doesn't have the strength to lift himself up. When he army crawls, his body drags along the ground. His back legs kick and don't seem to be moving abnormally, though they too seem weak - too weak to lift his body.


My second big (and likely related) concern is Mr. Mann's eating habits. Unfortunately, I have not had him with me for a few months, so I haven't been able to track his eating habit. I only brought him back to my house from my girlfriend's dorm this last week, so I only have seven days worth of data.

Before, up until now:

What I can tell you is that for the past couple months, Mr. Mann has had very little appetite. He has shown little to no interest in meal worms. In the not too distant past he showed marginal interest in crickets, but hasn't been able to catch them because of his legs (even crickets with hind legs removed are far too fast for him). Those are the two staples I offer him, but he doesn't seem interested in either of them anymore.
When he was with my girlfriend, she said she would be lucky to get him to eat one or two worms every two or three days. He just isn't interested in the food. Most recently, the only food he has really chomped for are silk worms, which - as far as we've been told - should not be used as a staple.

In addition to that, we have made that dry PetMed Leopard Gecko Food available to him, but I've never seen him go for that either.

We never gave him access to calcium in his tank, or dusted his food with a calcium and vitamin supplement, so we think that might have a lot to do with his poor state. Until now, we fed him meal worms straight from the container and did nothing special as far as gut loading or dusting them. The crickets we gave him were given Flukers Orange Cube and Flukers High Calcium Cricket Food to sustain them, but they were not specially dusted either.

Now:

We have since realized that his diet is lacking, and are now trying to improve it. When I brought him back to my place a week ago, I picked up: plain pedialyte, pure 100% calcium w/ no phosphorus or D3 for his tank, calcium with D3 for dusting, and a complete vitamin powder for dusting.

When I brought him home I decided that I should give assisted feeding a try. I didn't want to assume that he just wasn't hungry, and would eat when he was. I wanted to make sure he was getting some nutrients and the proper vitamins and minerals now that I had them.

The first couple days went well. I gently restrained him, rubbed the side of his mouth, and he opened his mouth wide enough for me to slide a mealworm in. He took three worms like this and ate them up before squirming and refusing to open his mouth. The next day he took six. He spit the last few out a couple times, but eventually took them.

From the has been downhill. One worm on day three was a struggle. He would not open his mouth, so I wedged the worm between his lips and gently worked it into his mouth. After attempting this a few more times, he finally took the worm, and didn't spit it out. I have been told not to force food into a Geckos mouth like this though, so that method of feeding is no longer an option.

So he ate 3 worms on day one, 6 on day two, and 1 on day three. 10 worms total for the week, about 5 of them dusted. Absolute refusal to eat or even open his mouth for the final four days of this week. Absolutely no interest in dry or live food left in his feed dish. His appetite isn't there. 80% of the worms he ate this week were a struggle.

The past couple days I have only been able to get him to lap up 2-5 drops of Pedialyte. Since the Pedialyte doesn't have much in it, I also have gotten him to lick up a little bits of my vitamin mineral mix powder from my finger (2:1 ratio of Calcium + D3 to general reptile vitamin powder.)

Additionally, his bowel movements are about as infrequent as his appetite. I'm not as worried about that, since he has always seemed to go 4-6 days between them, even when he was eating often. But it has been about a week or more since the last one.

I think the best course of action now is to attempt to syringe feed a slurry, and hopefully jump-start his appetite. But I'd just like any feedback and suggestions for his diet. Is 10 meal worms a week too little or just enough? It is much better than lately, so I'm happy about that. But I'm worried I won't be able to get him to open his mouth for the next week of feeding.


In short:

I'd like to know A.) what you all think about the state of his body and legs/the way her walks? And B.) how should I move forward with his feeding? How much should I feed him, how often? I attempted to feed him every day, but should I only feed every other day or every third day? How and what do you recommend I feed him? Is a slurry a good idea for week two? And what do I do if he absolutely will not open his mouth for assisted feedings?



Quickfacts:
Legs and body-
-a bit skinny in body/tail/legs?
-front legs slightly deformed?
-army crawls when walks
-can't support weight
-very weak
-spine maybe slightly deformed?
-back legs seem normal

Feeding-
-uninterested in food
-less than 10 insects a week
-recently started dusting half of food with 2:1 ratio of Calcium + D3 to general reptile vitamin powder
-drinking 2-5 drops pedialyte daily w/ 1-3 licks of 2:1 ratio mentioned above
-recently given access to 100% pure calcium w/ no D3
-goes 5+ days without bowel movements
-assist feeding meal worms. Will not eat crickets
-assist feeding no longer working. Won't open his mouth


Tank setup, data, and care:
Typical and simple setup up and care

-10 gallon tank (long)
-Reptile carpeting
-Hot dry hide
-Cool dry hide
-Cool wet hide
-Feed and water trays are metal caps to condiment jars (they are lower to the ground for him)
-Small plastic meal worm container lid for calcium
-Overhead 60watt day bulb and 50watt night bulb.
-8watt under tank heater

-mist cool side 2-4 times a day
-change water 1-2 times a week
-clean cage and especially carpet 1-2 times every two weeks

-hot side 80-83 degrees ambient (no probe thermometer, not sure of ground/basking temp)
-cool side 73-75 degrees ambient
-humidity 0%-30% wet hide is reliably humid though.


If there is any other information you want or need, please don't hesitate to ask.

 

[pundek144]

increase the hot side to 90

And your gecko has Metabolic Bone Disease

For now besides the temp, theres pretty much nothing you can do

 

[apricohtyl]

Thank you for addressing the first part of my question.

 

[acpart]

One reason that he may hard to feed, is that the MBD softens all the bones so it may be hard for him to chew solid food. I think the slurry would be a good idea. You can drop some on his nose and see if he'll lick it up. You can also squeeze the guts out of mealworms, crickets or superworms and see if he'll eat that (gross, but it works).

Could you also send me an email ([email protected]) about where in MA you live and where you may take him when you can get to a vet, especially if you're in E. MA. As you can see, I'm in MA also and have some info about vets.

Aliza

 

[sausage]

oh poor baby

agreed with the others he has severe MBD and the temp needs to be raised.
You must get rid of the heat bulbs and get a UTH as they absorb heat through their underside not from above.

unfortunatly im not sure there is much a vet could do to correct his legs at this stage, they might be able to splint his legs to add support?

 

[apricohtyl]

I have an UTH. I think I need a 75 watt buld though. I'm in New England, so it's getting pretty cold. For now I've been using a space heater to increase the general ambient temperature of my room. I've succeeded in getting the bask temp to 90-93 degrees. Much closer to the supposed ideal temps. Don't think Mr. Mann is quite used to it though. he spent most of today in his cool dry hide


I am hopeful that with better nutrition, he'll gain enough strength in his arms and legs. I'm not sure, but that don't seem badly deformed when I passively move them into their proper position. Seem like more up a strength issue, though I'm positive is bone have been affected some how and are still in danger.

 

[sausage]

the lamps are the reason hes spending so much time on the cool side, heat from above quickly results in burns because the skin cells on top aren't designed for intense heat.
you need to get a digital or infrared thermometer (infrared is better and can be bought cheaply on ebay) to get an accurate floor temp reading. a UTH should provide enough belly heat on its own. iv just seen that its an 8w so it might be better up to a 12w as they are a bit larger.
your mat should have a big enough area that the whole gecko (including tail) can stretch out on it with room to move around to the best spot.

 

[Olympus]

Your poor gecko is suffering from MBD. It seems as though his limbs are rubbery, which would indicate a severe calcium deficiency.

Calcium doesn't just make your teeth and bones strong, it's an element that is necessary in a huge number of nerve processes throughout the body. So in muscle contractions, intestinal contractions, heart and organ function, etc. So he may not be eating because his jaw may not have the rigidity to chew and because his intestines are not working properly. They physically can't move food through without calcium.

So I would definitely have your vet run bloodwork, figure out how bad the deficiency is, possibly an x-ray as well to visualize the damage, and get him on liquid calcium. Bug juice would definitely be a good idea to get food into him in the meantime (blend together gutloaded bugs with pedialite, sift, and syringe feed) or something like carnivore care.

MBD can be reversed, but any physical deformities may never correct themselves (especially not any healed awkward breaks.) but the deficiency can be fixed, it just might take a little time.

Once he's getting better definitely look into expanding his diet to include more feeder types and better gutloading foods. That will go a long way to improving his long-term health. Those fluker's cubes are very minimal, and frankly not worth the $8!

 

[DrCarrotTail]

I agree with others that it looks like MBD. The challenge with MBD is that it takes quite a while to reverse. Not only do you have to get Calcium into him, you also have to wait for his metabolism to do its thing and get the Ca into his bones so they strengthen. This can take months. Warmer temperatures in his enclosure will speed up his metabolism and may help speed this process. An experienced reptile vet can help you decide on the right temps and boost the speed and ease of getting Ca into him. You may need shots and liquid Ca to reverse his MBD at this point. You really need someone with the knowledge and expertise about what's out there and what works in cases like this to help you to decide on a plan of action. The average, and even above average leopard gecko breeder does not have experience dealing with out of the ordinary illness like your guy is demonstrating.

On the bright side, he looks like he's a very healthy weight. This is usually the deciding factor (in my experience) of how well sick geckos do. He needs the weight and fat reserves to get him through this low point when his bones are probably too weak to allow him to chew. The fatter he is the longer he can stay alive on minimal calories, acting quickly may give him the best chance as he'll lose less weight before he starts to get better. I think the slurry is a very good idea. Mealworm guts squeezed onto his nose might be a good idea too as well as softer food items like silk worms and wax worms. Basically anything that's nutritionally sound that he can lap up and not have to chew will help. I would give him small portions and weigh him often to monitor if he is getting enough calories to maintain his weight rather than focusing on how much he eats. Adult geckos do not need many calories to remain healthy. 2-3 ccs of slurry a week should be all he needs. If you can give it 1/4 to 1/2 cc every night or two it should be enough. I would aim to maintain his current body weight and not try to put weight on him as the heavier he is the harder it will be for him to move.

Good luck! My fingers are crossed for you and Mr. Mann!! Keep us posted on how he does!