syntheticreality
Newbie gecko addict
- Messages
- 492
- Location
- Troy, NY
I have terrible news to share today...
I came home this morning after spending the night at my girlfriend's house. This is something I never do, but the ONE night I decided to spend the night out, I'm struck with tragedy.
When I went into my room, I grabbed some food to feed the cats. While doing so, I stepped in a puddle of what looked like dirty water. I walked out into the kitchen to grab paper towels to clean the puddle and I stepped on something cold and squishy. My first though was that it was cat poop. I wish it had been. I wasn't wearing my contacts, so when I looked down I couldn't tell what it was. I squatted down to examine it. It didn't take lone before I realized it was the remains of a gecko.
It was headless, tailless, had insides hanging out, and was lying supinated on the floor. I turned it over to look at its back and realized it was my nicest Mack Snow 100% het RAPTOR (tremper/eclipse). My first outburst of emotion made me want to kill one or both of my cats! I quickly realized that they are just animals following their natural instincts.
Now I sit here and contemplate how this happened. NONE of my other geckos were even disturbed. The bin that this gecko came from was retracted back into the rack as if I had closed it myself. This is a well made rack without enough room for geckos to just squeeze out. I have been using it for about 5 months now and have never had an escape. If this gecko did squeeze itself out, it must have had some kind of Mr. Fantastic gene or something. If one of the cats let it out, they sure did a nice job of opening the bin, letting the gecko out, then closing the bin again.
I can only think of two other possibilities. Last night I fed in a hurry. Perhaps I turned my back while the bin was open to grab more crickets and the gecko jumped out then. I don't know how this could have happened because i put these bins open on my bed plenty of times to spread them out and distribute food. The other possibility is if, while leaving this bin open for a few seconds as described above, one of the cats grabbed the gecko and I didn't see. I seem to remember, however, seeing that gecko in its hide; dumping a few crickets in; and closing the tub. I just don't know what happened or why it had to be this gecko.
Words cannot express how upsetting this is too me. I'm a small time breeder and basically a dirt poor college kid. Not only is the loss of life a really hard hit to me, but that was one of my most valuable geckos that I cannot afford to replace.
I don't know what measures I need to take to prevent that from happening again. I have used this rack and had these geckos in it with these same cats in the apartment for months and nothing like this has happened. That particular gecko has only been here a week, so I can only hope this just had something to do with her extraordinary escape abilities.
If anyone has any advice, I'd REALLY appreciate it.
I came home this morning after spending the night at my girlfriend's house. This is something I never do, but the ONE night I decided to spend the night out, I'm struck with tragedy.
When I went into my room, I grabbed some food to feed the cats. While doing so, I stepped in a puddle of what looked like dirty water. I walked out into the kitchen to grab paper towels to clean the puddle and I stepped on something cold and squishy. My first though was that it was cat poop. I wish it had been. I wasn't wearing my contacts, so when I looked down I couldn't tell what it was. I squatted down to examine it. It didn't take lone before I realized it was the remains of a gecko.
It was headless, tailless, had insides hanging out, and was lying supinated on the floor. I turned it over to look at its back and realized it was my nicest Mack Snow 100% het RAPTOR (tremper/eclipse). My first outburst of emotion made me want to kill one or both of my cats! I quickly realized that they are just animals following their natural instincts.
Now I sit here and contemplate how this happened. NONE of my other geckos were even disturbed. The bin that this gecko came from was retracted back into the rack as if I had closed it myself. This is a well made rack without enough room for geckos to just squeeze out. I have been using it for about 5 months now and have never had an escape. If this gecko did squeeze itself out, it must have had some kind of Mr. Fantastic gene or something. If one of the cats let it out, they sure did a nice job of opening the bin, letting the gecko out, then closing the bin again.
I can only think of two other possibilities. Last night I fed in a hurry. Perhaps I turned my back while the bin was open to grab more crickets and the gecko jumped out then. I don't know how this could have happened because i put these bins open on my bed plenty of times to spread them out and distribute food. The other possibility is if, while leaving this bin open for a few seconds as described above, one of the cats grabbed the gecko and I didn't see. I seem to remember, however, seeing that gecko in its hide; dumping a few crickets in; and closing the tub. I just don't know what happened or why it had to be this gecko.
Words cannot express how upsetting this is too me. I'm a small time breeder and basically a dirt poor college kid. Not only is the loss of life a really hard hit to me, but that was one of my most valuable geckos that I cannot afford to replace.
I don't know what measures I need to take to prevent that from happening again. I have used this rack and had these geckos in it with these same cats in the apartment for months and nothing like this has happened. That particular gecko has only been here a week, so I can only hope this just had something to do with her extraordinary escape abilities.
If anyone has any advice, I'd REALLY appreciate it.
