Should he be bigger?

[rubym]

My hatchling ( I finally got the pictures to walmart and will get the disk tonight and get them posted) was 4 grams when he hatched. I weighed him last night and he was still 4 grams. He is 10 days old. He has been eating 1 or 2 small crickets every morning and 2 small crickets and 2 small mealies at night. All the insects are gutloaded and I add calcium once a day and the multi vitamins once a week. Should he have gained? This is our first hatchling and I am not sure what is normal. He is having normal poos and he takes water from a dropper but I also have a cap in the tank. He is in his big boy tank now ( 10 gal). He has 2 hides on the warm spot ( reads 88-90) and 1 humidity hide. On the cool side ( reads 76-80) he has 1 dry hide and 1 humidity hide. All his hides are extra small so they suit him. I keep a cap of our tiny mealies in there 24/7 and a cap of water and a calcium cap. He is very active. Being so tiny can they still have parasites? I don't want to take him to the vet but I could call and see if I can just get a fecal done if its necessary at this age. As I said I am just not sure what the normal growth rate is. Thanks

 

[johnnyboy4783]

i wouldnt be to worried about it yet unless he starts losing wieght or dosen't gain any in another week or so

 

[Mel&Keith]

Sometimes their hatch weight is partly absorbed water weight so it would make sense that it lost water bloat and gained fat weight. If your scale doesn't weigh in tenths of a gram, it may have gained a little weight and the scale just isn't reading it.

 

[rubym]

oh ok. No my scale just weighs in whole grams. Should I get one that is better? I bought this one at Walmart for only about $26.00. It does Zero out but it doesn't do tenths.

 

[Mel&Keith]

You don't really need one that measures to the tenths. It's usually not a big deal if a gecko loses less than a whole gram but some times it is nice to know the fractions. I think there's usually a a substantial price difference (maybe $100?) between gram and smaller than a gram scales so it comes down to whether or not you personally care to now the tenths. I'm sure your baby is fine and I can't wait to see the pics!

 

[rubym]

No as long as it's not a big deal, I can think of other ways to spend $100....like another gecko, LOL. He just seems so small compared to other hatchling pictures but he had a rough start in that egg. He was attatched to an infertile egg and I had to seperate it. That made what appeared to be a week side to the egg and we wasn't sure he would make it. Then our electric went out in the middle of the night and the incubator dropped to 75 for about 3 hours before we knew it ( I have an alarm now that sounds if the electric goes off) and put heat packs in there. Then it got dents and mold. His little eyes look good and his tail is nice and straight and he has all his little legs and toes, he just looks smaller then most of the others.