Aloha, Elizabeth
She is about 3/4" from nose to vent -- she is the smallest day gecko
hatchling we have ever seen, although some of our mourning gecko
hatchlings are even tinier.
This sounds like it might work! If it would just soften enough to pull
off her or get a split started, I think we could get the neck skin off.
We have been misting her little cage and putting a heating pad next to
it, but that only helps a little and wasn't keeping the humidity up high
enough.
She has never seemed to be able to fully control her right leg, and her
right foot is smaller than her left and the toes kind of clumped
together. She often tends to move the joint and leg together as a unit,
so there may be something wrong with the joint, too. Although in
watching her with the skin problem, some of that may just be the skin
being so tight it restricts her movement.
Usually when we find the hatchlings, most of that first skin has already
been shed, but she was fully covered with it and it has only recently
started splitting. We do think it hinders her use of her limbs -- her
arms are only about the size of thin pencil lead, and the skin seems to
fully coat those.
She has been doing okay up until the last couple of days, though, when
the skin (I hope that it isn't something else, too) started really
becoming a problem. She now gets around by lurching her body back and
forth because her little arms & legs are still encased in the skin,
although it has come off some of the back. And she is green underneath,
not gray!
We haven't ever actually kept any of the geckos before, as they run all
around our house, lanai and garden (Phelsuma laticauda, house -
Hemidactylus frenatus, & Mourning - Lepidodactylus lugubris). But we had
to make an exception in her case, since she couldn't fend for herself.
Usually we just take the hatchlings outside so they have a better chance
of survival -- we have lots of big geckos running around inside and they
don't last long if we don't get to them first. :(
Mahalo, Sherron
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hello Sherron ~
Try the humidity chamber trick. I can't view your photos at home
because my laptop is really memory-challenged, so I don't know how big
this gecko is! However, my mourning geckos are 1" 3/8" at hatching.
Try placing your gecko in a *vented* plastic container with a damp
washcloth inside. Place this near a light. Almost immediately you
will notice beads of water accumulate on the sides/top of the
container. After a few hours or so perhaps you can remove the rings
of old skin around her neck gently with a tweezers or small scissors.
What is the problem with her right leg? Might you have a new pet here?
Elizabeth
Subj:*[gecko]Question on hatchling Gold Dust Day Gecko having trouble
shedding "egg skin"*
Date:6/1/08 4:16:39 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Sherron)
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-to: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
We found a tiny hatchling on May 13 that was a little underdeveloped
and was still in that grayish skin they have when they first come out
of the shell. She was dehydrated and has a problem with her right leg,
but is spunky.
We haven't been able to release her outside like we do the rest of the
hatchings we find, as her bad leg has kept her from being very mobile,
but she has been doing pretty well eating tiny bugs & aphids I collect
for her. She has also shown a real interest in the fruit flies around
her papaya, but I don't think she has managed to catch any yet.
But she started having trouble yesterday and was real cold & clammy,
so we put a heating pad near her cage to help warm her up. It seems to
have started her molting her "egg skin", but she has a bunch of it
around her neck that she can't get off.
Is there anything we can do to help her? She is so tiny we don't see
how we could try to cut it off! The rest of the skin except for around
her neck should slough off okay, but the stuff around her neck is
several layers and is a ring, so it may be another matter. :(
Any help would be greatly appreciated as she is really a spunky little
girl.
Mahalo, Sherron
*
~~~geckos make my heart sing (and dance)~~~
*
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lappert(a) robert(a) hubert(a)
17.50 yo r.i.p.
r.i.p.
(All */Lepidodactylus lugubris/*!)
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Gecko aka Sherron, Kailua Kona, Hawaii (on the Big Island of Hawaii)
Homepage: http://hale-pohaku.com/sherron - mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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