Tail Kinks Becoming More Common

[justindh1]

I wouldn't cull a gecko with a tail kink the first day unless it had other health issues or it was a severe kink. I have had one gecko hatch with a small kink this year and with-in a day or two it completely disappeared. I suspect that maybe the tail was position weird while it was in the egg thus causing the tail to look kinked. I could be wrong. That is the only issue I won't cull right away on.

I believe that the longer you breed reptiles and leopard geckos in general, the more you understand the importance of culling unwanted genetics from the gene pool. Think about it as we are controlling natural selection. The natural selection for the healthiest offspring that can possible be produced.

 

[artes]

Putting down a great dane having seizures is a lot different from putting down a gecko who is missing a tail tip.

I have a cat named Twistie. He is probably the sweetest cat on the planet. He headbutts anything and everything for attention - me, rats, geckos, and a giant bulldog right in the face.

He was in the shelter for 8 months of his life. No one wanted him because of his tail. I do not understand this mind set. I hate repeating myself, but here we go - we are not perfect looking. No human is. Why would we demand perfection from animals? Why would you put down an innocent baby for not being perfect?

But I guess I'm just a weird person. I won't even step on bugs. Including bugs that just bit me - unless it was a fire ant or a tick, I just flick them off me. It took me 23 years to work up to buying an animal that required live food. My first fish that I bought on my own (I was 8) were a handful of feeder guppies because I felt sorry for them. I flat out cannot comprehend killing something just for a little defect that is only cosmetic. Serious health issues are one thing. A tail kink is not serious.

 

[robin]

is your cat spayed/neutered?

 

[artes]

Yes. All five of mine are.

 

[robin]

Yes. All five of mine are.

unlike many mammals, leos can not be spayed/neutered if there is a defect (to keep it from breeding and passing on the trait).

 

[MiamiLeos]

Yes. All five of mine are.

I understand completely what you are saying and I agree with you on your kitty, he is wonderful and makes a fabulous pet. However, lets say he was not fixed and then bred with another cat. Down the line the twisted tail may turn into a twisted spine or other deformity. So yes, he is wonderful, but he is fixed. We can't guarantee that a leo with a kink that is given away as pet only will always be a pet only. And we can't spay/neuter them :main_no:

 

[artes]

Twistie was born with a broken tail. The people who previously owned him did not realize it was broken for some reason, so it didn't grow back properly. So, he's going to pass down the trait of... having a broken tail?

Edit: Which is kind of my point on the geckos who have kinked tails. If its an incubation error, he was squished in the egg wrong, etc., then its not genetic. So, why put it down? And even if Twistie's tail was genetic, or the gecko's tail was genetic... if there's no health issues to deal with, who cares?

 

[MiamiLeos]

If he was born with it then yes, he could pass down the trait. If it was an injury, then that's a whole different topic and his case would be irrelivant to the thread.

 

[geckogirl3]

Putting down a great dane having seizures is a lot different from putting down a gecko who is missing a tail tip.

I have a cat named Twistie. He is probably the sweetest cat on the planet. He headbutts anything and everything for attention - me, rats, geckos, and a giant bulldog right in the face.

He was in the shelter for 8 months of his life. No one wanted him because of his tail. I do not understand this mind set. I hate repeating myself, but here we go - we are not perfect looking. No human is. Why would we demand perfection from animals? Why would you put down an innocent baby for not being perfect?

But I guess I'm just a weird person. I won't even step on bugs. Including bugs that just bit me - unless it was a fire ant or a tick, I just flick them off me. It took me 23 years to work up to buying an animal that required live food. My first fish that I bought on my own (I was 8) were a handful of feeder guppies because I felt sorry for them. I flat out cannot comprehend killing something just for a little defect that is only cosmetic. Serious health issues are one thing. A tail kink is not serious.

Same with me, i won't even kill an ant on a sidewalk.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

I do not believe kinked tails are more common now at all. Years ago, Murphy Patternless were plagued with kinked tails. I always suspected it was due to inbreeding, so I spent the next 5 years outcrossing and not breeding geckos with kinked tails. I have not produced a patty with a kinked tail in years.

On the flip side, I honestly believe that many kinked tails are congenital, and not necessarily inherent. I've produced several babies that had tail issues that I could guarantee 100% were due to incubation temperature fluctuations and/or the way the tail grew in the egg. I see no reason to destroy these animals for something that has little, if any, quality of life issue. The problem is, that if we sell them as 'pet only' we have no guarantee that genetic problems will not be incorporated back into the gene pool.

Something interesting though... I've see plenty of leopard gecko X-rays, and even if a gecko has a visibly perfect tail, the tail bones in the images are not. This tells me that not ALL tail issues are genetic, and many could be attributed to supplementation, environmental, and embryonic development in the egg.

 

[artes]

When he came out of his Mommy, he had it. It is likely he got stuck and the person pulled a bit too hard or something. Or he was born with softer bones and he'll drop dead in a few years because a rib broke and punctured his lung. Or he'll live for 30 years and die peacefully in his sleep of old age.

You see where I'm going with this? You cannot -know- that something negative will happen if you leave a baby gecko with a skewed tail alive. You can only know you're killing a baby on the -offchance-.

All we're doing is repeating our same arguments over and over again though. Let's just enjoy the cuteness of Twistie, and I'll go get headbutted irl.

 

[geckogirl3]

i have a question, if a gecko was born with a kink in their tail, and got in a fight and lost the kinked part, would the kink be there when it grew back?

 

[artes]

Let's find out! Here Joker Joker Joker...

(10000000% kidding!)

 

[geckogirl3]

hahahahahaha

 

[Reborn]

Sadly it seems many of the senior-not meaning old!- members of this forum have lost all hope in people. I have 80 odd geckos. Of that id say atleast 10 are pet onlys. I have one with a club tail, one with MBD, one with broken jaw, A few enigmas who have bad sydrome but you get my point. Their pet onlys. Unfortantly the club tail got put with a female and they did indeed breed. There babies all came out healthy-VERY healthy- I didnt cull them but kept them to see if there was anything wrong. Did vet work and there's not a darn thing wrong with them but there staying here...coz of that risk of it some how being genetic. The cub tail had temp flucuation and hatched out like this. He was never meant to breed. But as the senior members have stated. You dont know what could happen with them. A friend was cleaning cages while i was away and put him in with a female... I had told said friend not to put any together since they didnt know who was male or female. Such things happen tho. We have no control. Since this issue I havent had any repeats and all babies have grown well. I hope to adopt them out one day but for now I refrain. Like the senior members stated you just dont know with people...so I have lost hope in people too.... Leos are just to easy to breed to trust anyone. I cant garantee if something bad happened to me that these geckos wouldnt fall into bad hands.

 

[Tony C]

All we're doing is repeating our same arguments over and over again though.

Only because you refuse to acknowledge the valid points that have been made here. The first being that Twisty's tail is the result of an injury, which was established early in the thread as NOT being a reason to cull because there is no genetic component. The second point is that a cat or dog with a defect that does not effect quality of life can be spayed/neutered, removing it from the gene pool. Leopard geckos can not be spayed/neutered and therefore must be terminally culled to prevent future breeding. You are trying to compare apples and oranges, and take the thread off track with cute cats, forcing the circular argument that you are complaining about.

 

[robin]

Sadly it seems many of the senior-not meaning old!- members of this forum have lost all hope in people. I have 80 odd geckos. Of that id say atleast 10 are pet onlys. I have one with a club tail, one with MBD, one with broken jaw, A few enigmas who have bad sydrome but you get my point.

while you are typing your reply please think of your gecko and treat the MBD and take the gecko with the broken jaw to the vet. dude, it's about the quality of life

 

[fl_orchidslave]

Sadly it seems many of the senior-not meaning old!- members of this forum have lost all hope in people. I have 80 odd geckos. Of that id say atleast 10 are pet onlys. I have one with a club tail, one with MBD, one with broken jaw, A few enigmas who have bad sydrome but you get my point. Their pet onlys. Unfortantly the club tail got put with a female and they did indeed breed. There babies all came out healthy-VERY healthy- I didnt cull them but kept them to see if there was anything wrong. Did vet work and there's not a darn thing wrong with them but there staying here...coz of that risk of it some how being genetic. The cub tail had temp flucuation and hatched out like this. He was never meant to breed. But as the senior members have stated. You dont know what could happen with them. A friend was cleaning cages while i was away and put him in with a female... I had told said friend not to put any together since they didnt know who was male or female. Such things happen tho. We have no control. Since this issue I havent had any repeats and all babies have grown well. I hope to adopt them out one day but for now I refrain. Like the senior members stated you just dont know with people...so I have lost hope in people too.... Leos are just to easy to breed to trust anyone. I cant garantee if something bad happened to me that these geckos wouldnt fall into bad hands.

It's not so much losing faith in people, as it is that we realize situations in life happen that we may not be able to control. Car accidents, loss of job, illness, separation from spouse, etc are all things that can change our animals' future. How many times have you rescued animals from "situations" that came with nothing but an appetite and compromised state of health? If you are truly concerned about genetic defects you wouldn't incubate eggs from an accidental mating involving a questionable gecko. JMO.

 

[Reborn]

while you are typing your reply please think of your gecko and treat the MBD and take the gecko with the broken jaw to the vet. dude, it's about the quality of life

Done and done. no worries there. The pet only ones have all been to the vet several times- there old rescues. I suppose i should have said such. Broken jaw is all healed up and MBD is stopped...tho her legs are perminately deformed from it-both from the same person mind you. No worries~ healed and now eating on there own.

 

[Reborn]

It's not so much losing faith in people, as it is that we realize situations in life happen that we may not be able to control. Car accidents, loss of job, illness, separation from spouse, etc are all things that can change our animals' future. How many times have you rescued animals from "situations" that came with nothing but an appetite and compromised state of health? If you are truly concerned about genetic defects you wouldn't incubate eggs from an accidental mating involving a questionable gecko. JMO.

I had no intentions of it. I didnt know till the eggs had hatched and out popped super snows did i know she was bred to him-she was with a different male prior to this and had been pulled and my friend didnt feel the need to tell me until i was searching threw my notes as to how the hell did i get super snow from the pairing i had thought. snow enigma het bellx a bell dont make supers~ Had 3 babies hatch out from it before my friend told me-months of re reading said notes trying to figure out where the heck super snow could have happened. The other 5 eggs were infact frozen then thrown...Never from families not able to keep them. I have stopped "rescuing" for the most part because people seemed to think pawning them off on me was a good idea... hundreds spent on the rescues i have now and only adopted out one... I had no intention on taking in a few, mind you, had read a few adds on craigslist and thought i'd respond... Dunno bout you if you seen a gecko with a deformed jaw under weight or another with such bad MBD its front legs were bent in warn you couldnt say no. Even if it was just to end there pain.

Such was a good example as to why defective ones should be culled. S**T happens we cant control now instead of one genetically messed up animal i have 4. I had no intention of breeding them and from one person mistake have 4. Would I have culled the Cubbed tail? Probably. Would i consider it now? No way. He's probably one of the sweetest geckos i own. Like the OP a defective gecko has stolen my heart <3 Dont encourage defective breeding but there are people looking for pet onlys. Personally wouldnt even consider breeding a pet store gecko since its genetics are unknown.