Medi Gecko (Hemidactylus turcicus) hatchling help

[Alex G]

So tonight my cat found something more interesting than his usual cricket or beetle... a Mediterranean house gecko. This guy is TINY! My smallest mealworms are about the length of his entire body. I rescued him from the cat and I was going to just let him go back out into the yard when I noticed one of his legs was broken and slightly bloody. Not sure if it was my cat or something else, but I figured a tiny and injured baby gecko would be an easy dinner for something out there, so I put him in a tupper ware with a very shallow milk lid with some water, and a gatorade lid with a little bit a calcium+D3. My plan is to keep him until his leg improves, but that's probably going to require food, right? So what can I feed him? I'm not even sure if pinhead crix will be small enough for this guy. Anyone with experience?

 

[Tony C]

Fruit flies should do the trick, you can usually get a starter culture at Pet Co for about $10.

 

[triplegex]

sorry to say it but sounds like the best thing would be to just put it down...

 

[Alex G]

Fruit flies should do the trick, you can usually get a starter culture at Pet Co for about $10.

Ok neat! That's what I was thinking but I wasn't completely sure and wanted to ask first. Thanks!

sorry to say it but sounds like the best thing would be to just put it down...

I figured I might get a response like this, especially as Medi Geckos are an invasive, non-native species, but I figure I can try my best to keep him alive and if he doesn't make it, well, that's how it is sometimes.

 

[fuzzylogix]

if the guy is bleeding and has a broken limb, he's probably suffering enough. keeping him alive for a few days might just make it worse. especially if it gets an infection. i have to agree with adam on this one unfortunately.

 

[Alex G]

I don't think that will happen... Even if it might be the right thing to do, and I don't mind having to do it, my parents are very excited about the little guy and the idea of nursing him back to health, and they're kind of childish when it comes to animals. At the very least the little guy will be somewhere safe and warm if he has to die, and at the very best he'll heal and be fine.

 

[fuzzylogix]

good luck and i wish him the best. and tony is right, fruit flies are the way to go if pinheads are too large

 

[Alex G]

Thank you for your well-wishing! I'm optimistic for this guy.

 

[Tony C]

My plan is to keep him until his leg improves, but that's probably going to require food, right?

I just re-read it and saw this. Since they are an invasive exotic, I would plan to keep it for the remainder of it's natural life.

 

[Alex G]

Alright then. I wasn't planning to but now that I think of it you're probably right on that call.

 

[triplegex]

Med gex are not native but they do not compete because we have no arboreal geckos in the SW US and they have formed a niche for themselves. so you could let it go if it survives

 

[M_surinamensis]

if the guy is bleeding and has a broken limb, he's probably suffering enough. keeping him alive for a few days might just make it worse. especially if it gets an infection. i have to agree with adam on this one unfortunately.

I usually regard injuries as a subjective judgment call.

Reptiles do have some amazing healing abilities and a tremendous capacity for cellular regeneration. They can bounce back and heal up from some types of physical trauma that would be a death sentence for a similarly affected mammal. Not every time of course, but surprisingly well surprisingly often if they don't develop an infection and it is not an injury to the head or body cavity.

I've also got some... views... about what constitutes sufficient pain in order to euthanize as a form of mercy killing. Mostly having to do with what pain is and what it means. I tend to reserve terminal options for conditions where there are readily apparent signs of behavioral distress or where I am reasonably certain that death is inevitable regardless of my intervention.

Without seeing the specific injury, ideally in person, I'm usually not willing to offer specific advice related to medical conditions, so the stuff above was meant in more general terms than it was directed at the injured animal mentioned in this thread.

 

[M_surinamensis]

Med gex are not native but they do not compete because we have no arboreal geckos in the SW US and they have formed a niche for themselves. so you could let it go if it survives

They still compete for prey against native species.

More than that, the time it spends in captivity eating fruit flies will potentially expose it to foreign pathogens. Once captive, no animals should ever be released under anything except the most tightly controlled and legal rehabilitation conditions.

 

[triplegex]

They still compete for prey against native species.

More than that, the time it spends in captivity eating fruit flies will potentially expose it to foreign pathogens. Once captive, no animals should ever be released under anything except the most tightly controlled and legal rehabilitation conditions.

That's a good point about the fruit flies

 

[M_surinamensis]

Yeah, it's not all that commonly going to be something virulent- but it can be. Contact with imported sulcattas is believed to be responsible for the viral epidemic that is murdering huge populations of native desert tortoises for example. And there have been a few sketchy reports of IBD-like-symptoms manifesting in wild populations of crotalids (which may be entirely coincidental since the cause of IBD in captive boids isn't exactly pinned down and cross-contamination to pit vipers in captive collections is unknown).

 

[Alex G]

As far as the injury goes, he's so tiny I can barely see, but there's a little bit of blood on his right back knee. It may not be broken - he moves very quickly - but as tiny and fragile looking as he is, I'd bet that it's broken before I'd say it was just a skin injury.

 

[shadowdragon619]

how is the little guy doing? i cant believe he's as tiny as you say he is! its amazing you found him...well, your cat did, but still, lol

 

[Alex G]

So far so good! I don't know if he ate or drank any of the calcium/water last night, but he's still alive and alert this morning, and the blood on his leg seems to have dried, so hopefully he's on his way to healing! I need to go to a pet store for my Herp club's adoption event today anyways, so I'll be picking up some wingless fruit flies for him.

 

[Alex G]

Gave him some wingless (which actually have wings! AND USE THEM!!!) fruit flies today, he ate two of the four already, probably will eat more when it gets dark. Eating is a good sign but I'm still waiting for a poo!

 

[Tony C]

They should not have wings, either the culture was contaminated by other fly strains or it was kept too warm. Are you misting the cage? Many lizards will ignore a dish of water and only drink "dewdrops" from misting.