Re: [gecko]Deformed Leopard geckos

[Julie Bergman]

My dwarfs have never caught up in size. I would not try a bird vitamin on a gecko because they usually have too much pre-formed vitamin A. You could be creating another metabolic imbalance to fix another. Dr. Susan Donoghue has helped me with metabolic problems, hopefully she will chime in here. I know from experience it is a very tricky business when you are messing with solutions in this dept. I know from past experience chasing down problems like this you need to document what is going on over a period of time and be really sure about the diagnosis. The best way I know to do this would be to hook up with an experienced non-domestic vet. IMHO metabolic issues in leopards are not common. Genetic and parasite issues are what are commonly seen. I rarely hear of metabolic problems with leos. They seem to do well on most common supplements: Mineral I with D3, RepCal with D3 mixed with Herptivite 50/50, T-Rex Leopard Gecko Dust (ICB) and Susan Donoghue's Gecko Performance Plus. Susan also has pure Calcium carbonate, I put this in shallow dishes for females. Quite a few of my customers have been advised to get and purchased supplements from pet shops with too much preformed Vitamin A like Reptivite. I believe I am catching most of them before they give these to their new geckos! I also have a list of supplements for them in their care sheet for their gecko. Another concern I have is the plethora of vitamin products coming out that are being pushed on gecko owners. Folks need to understand supplementation is gecko specific. Julie B. Steve Sykes wrote: I have seen eye mutants, dwarf leopards, and tail kinks. I have heard from several sources that eye mutants are due to a vitamin A deficiency, and a bird supplement called Vionate will provide the right balance, although i have never used Vionate myself. Has anyone used Vionate? I have observed eye mutants seem to come groups (supporting a temporary deficiency problem in the mother that was remedied later in the breeding season). A few years ago the first eight leopards I hatched of the year were all eye mutants (from different females in the same breeding group), but I only hatched a couple more that year out of hundreds of eggs. The dwarf leopards are cute, and usually catch up in size over time. I have looked inside the eggshells of dwarf hatchlings and found unused yolk, so it appears this may be due to some sort of development problem. I think of them as "premies". The tail kinks definitely appear to be genetic on some level, possibly bahaving as a recessive trait. It seems to be especially common in patternless, or het patternless animals. I always thought it would be neat to do some controlled crosses to figure out how the "tail kink trait" works, but then again I don't want to propagate this "fault"! Regards, Steve www.geckosetc.com --- nathan greenlay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: --------------------------------- julie, I seem to get dwarf leopards more than anything else. i would agree with this. most non-normal leopards seem to be smaller in general as hatchlings and as adults. An interesting note, the slight tail kink guys I have kept don't seem to produce any abnormal babies that I have noticed i have a patternless male leo with a small kink in the tip of his tail. his offspring with two kink-less patternless females are about 50% with kinked tail, 50% without. it seems to be inherited somehow. i would also agree that most of these mutations (such as the tail kink) would arise from genetic inbreeding. no other gecko has been bred to the extent that leopards have, so this does not surprise me. take a look at what a couple centuries of inbreeding has done to the common goldfish...now, there are some hideous mutations!! nathan nathan greenlay www.geocities.com/geckoboy14 --------------------------------- The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* _______________________________________________Global Gecko Associationhttp://www.gekkota.comClassifiedshttp://www.gekkota.com/cgi-gekkota/classifieds.cgigecko mailing [EMAIL PROTECTED]://lists.gekkota.com/mailman/listinfo/gecko _______________________________________________ Global Gecko Association http://www.gekkota.com Classifieds http://www.gekkota.com/cgi-gekkota/classifieds.cgi gecko mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.gekkota.com/mailman/listinfo/gecko