Leopard Gecko Rescue

[MichaelJ]

My wife is on the board of directors at our local SPCA. She does a lot of events and chairs a million committees.. She was speaking with the chairmen of the board about our little venture and she noted that the shelter often gets a lot of people bringing in leopard geckos to surrender for one reason or another.. and they have no idea what to do with them.. So my wife jumped..

Now we are the new Leopard Gecko Rescue Center for the Pinellas County Area, of FL. When people surrender them to the shelter we will be contacted and foster them until we can find them a new home. Our vet has volunteered as well to do full work ups on all of them before we get them to our house, and then we adopt them out.

I'm building yet another Rack in the back part of our garage for them to keep them far away from our brood in case of disease or parasites, but were looking forward to helping out any animals we can and adopting out needy animals to loving homes.. Look for us on the adoptions page in the near future!

P.S. - I've noted many things in the past that I hate; pet shop owners, coding HTML on websites, sexually aggressive male Albinos that fancy my knuckle over a female gecko, and crickets a few times.. I now also hate building racks. I've built four of the stupid things and I hate it more each time.. Yes I know you're going to say it's cheaper and it's not that hard, but I still hate it.. and my hands are all torn up, half my clothes are covered in saw dust, and my palms vibrate all night from drill usage.. I can't be believe I just said vibrating palms is bad.. but in this instance it is..!

I'm not really sure why racks by companies have to cost a million dollars when they know we can do it for about a quarter, but know I think I have an idea now.. Because it's a pain in the rear and at this point I'd be much happier to pay someone else to do it than sweat for two to three days putting together and wiring a glorified bookcase!

Okay... I'm done whining now.. thank you for listening..

 

[nwheat]

Lol! I'm sure you will have to build more soon, too!

It's wonderful that those rescues will have such a good home! :main_thumbsup:

 

[moosassah]

Congratulations. I have the feeling this venture will get out of control rather quickly. Have you considered how you will adopt them out? A simple form & picture request of their cage set up will eliminate most of the people who aren't really planning on taking the plunge. Good luck!

 

[MichaelJ]

Congratulations. I have the feeling this venture will get out of control rather quickly. Have you considered how you will adopt them out? A simple form & picture request of their cage set up will eliminate most of the people who aren't really planning on taking the plunge. Good luck!

Actually, they only take in around 3-5 a month, and if the on staff vet decides that they will not live a good life they are humanely put down.

50% of my sales thus far have been to families wanting them for children. I also have about full tank setups that we can sell them at half the price that they would pay retail because they are slightly used.

There are a lot of outlets for adoptions around the area and I'm not really worried about it. I've also got a few people already lined up to be foster parents and I'm sure as has happened with us in the past they ended up not being able to let go and kept them.

I visited one when I was in Phoenix last winter and they had a good setup and said they didn't keep them long or at least as long as they needed to get back to good health. They SPCA vet and my vet are going to take care of all meds, fecals, and supplies to house and feed them. We're happy to do our part and if it gets out of hand we'll do what we can and help as many as possible.

 

[moosassah]

I think it's great. I know what you mean about foster families, lol.

 

[Alusdra]

That's awesome that you are going to help out the needy geckos. Not many are surrendered around here (that I know of, anyway). I would have thought there would be more what with how long they can live and how plentiful they are in pet stores... but you taking them in and becoming an official rescue is very cool. Very nice you have such great vet around, too, to help you out.

 

[brandy101010]

It's a really good thing your doing and I wish you the best of luck.

 

[okapi]

Up here we only see iguanas turned into the shelters. If a leo ever came in im sure I would be the one to take it home. That is kinda how I got into geckos in the first place. I fostered/adopted an adult iguana for a year and decided that I wanted something a little smaller. Then I got my first tremper albino and the rest is history.

 

[Leopardbreeder]

I hate when people buy iguanas, not realizing that they get 5 feet long and eat a pound of veggies a day.

 

[boutiquegecko]

How is this project going? When I worked there we hardly ever got leopards in. I used to make a rucus about the iguanas though-they had no idea what they were doing reptile wise. And no one ever knew they were available for adoption either.

 

[rubym]

I think it is great what you are doing. We have 4 that were rescues and I wouldn't take anything for my babies. I would definatly be one of those people that got attatched and wouldn't be able to part with them. I live in Southern Indiana and I could not imagine a reptile ever going to our local shelter. We do not even have any local vets that will treat a reptile. I drive 2.5 hours to the closest herp vet. Good luck with your new venture.