Rescuing poor condition leos, is it possible

[brillobee]

At a pet store I go to there are two adult albino leopard geckos, they both are skin and bones. Their tails are pencil thin. Kept on sand and I pretty sure no belly heat. It is so hard not to to buy those poor leos and rescue them. Has anyone had success rescuing leos in that bad of shape? I was in there yesterday and one was in the humid hide shedding, the other looked dead. I know I shouldn't buy them because they'll just get more. Funny thing is their younger leos always look better than these two poor souls.

 

[fl_orchidslave]

Stores that keep animals on display in this condition hope for someone to come along and feel bad enough for the sickly lizard (s) and buy them. In turn, they can reorder more stock and put a whole new batch of geckos in that same tank. When those geckos have been in the store long enough, they too will begin to look sickly. This rather common situation will continue as long as consumers keep buying into it. Some stores may cut an almost decent deal on an obviously sick animal, but its up to you if you think its got a shot to recover. Not only can it be very expensive to rehabilitate a sick gecko, but also put your healthy animals at risk of contagious disease.

Personally, I won't pay a dime for a sick animal.

 

[Russellm0704]

If your gonna rescue a Leo, I'd check your local craigslist ads. The ads are mostly people who got a gecko, liked it for a few months, then got bored of it and never really even cared about the correct way to take care of the animal.

 

[satyr666]

I wouldn't buy them. You could be getting yourself into an expensive situation paying vet bills (especially in Canada) for sickly animals not to mention the health risk to your own animals. Also I wouldn't give money to people that treat their animals like that.

 

[brillobee]

Thanks guys, you pretty much reinforced the argument going on in my head. It is just too bad that animals that have such simple care requirments have to be subject to such terrible treatment.

 

[fl_orchidslave]

It's very sad indeed, Pam. As consumers, we vote with our dollars, and purchasing sick animals from shops reinforces their practices.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

I no longer even go to look at the reptiles when I have to go to a pet store. I used to think I could save every gecko I saw, and in most cases it brought me nothing but heartache and vet bills. Whenever contemplating whether or not to "rescue" a sickly animal, ask the store to give them to you. If you PAY for a sick animal, you are not really rescuing it. You are enabling the store to continue their poor husbandry practices. What incentive do they have to correct these issues if people are willing to pay money for them?

 

[animeavatar]

Tell the manager or the owner that their care isn't right. If they don't care then you can decide what to do. Here there are laws regarding the care of animals.

 

[Bushido]

This is true.

I'm new to Gecko's, but I've done hours and hours of researching, learning about them, so that I can provide the best home to them.

I got my first Gecko from PetCo, it was with two other baby Gecko's -- one had already lost it's tail. The one I picked out was in decent condition. Now she's thriving at home, alert, looks great, tail is getting fat, and she runs around with a healthy appetite.

I went to the same PetCo yesterday to look at some stuff, and checked to see if they had any new Gecko's. Nope, same two, and they looked horrible. They were much thinner, weren't alert to anything, and didn't even crack their eyes open if I tapped on the glass..

Just sad to see