Aloha, Melody
I have been using the refrigerator trick, but the fruit flies recover
within seconds up to a minute of being removed from the refrigerator
since the temperature is always pretty warm here in Hawaii. I even tried
the freezer for a little while, but that is tricky since they die pretty
easily.
So what I have been doing is trying to catch only one or two at a time
(hard to do, as the papaya skins are attracting a bunch of fruit flies
-- our kitchen is crawling with them!), putting them in the
refrigerator about 10 minutes, and then trying to work quickly enough
with tweezers and scissors to cut off one of their wings. And they are
tiny!! And I only have regular big shears, so I really need to buy
something like cuticle scissors or something smaller, because it is
really hard to cut off a wing and not crush or hurt the little fruit fly.
But even after I have done all that, the fruit flies can hop!! So she
still has a little problem catching them. But to get out of her cage
now, they have to crawl all the way up the wall, so they tend to hang
around more and she obviously must be getting them as they eventually
disappear. ;)
But I feel like I have been spending hours with a magnifying glass and
tweezers trying to cut wings off the fruit flies!! ;D
Thanks, Sherron
Melody Hartley wrote:
Hi Sherron,
Try catching some fruit flies and putting them in the refrigerator for
a few minutes. That slows them down, and the gecko might be able to
catch them. Also, the humid chamber that Elizabeth wrote about has
always worked for me with geckos that have trouble shedding.
Best of luck!
Melody
Gecko wrote:
We did try a little water on a Q-tip and worked on the ring around
her neck. It softened a little, but didn't split. My husband was able
to barely get hold of it with tweezers to give it a little pull, but
it wouldn't split -- and we couldn't get anything in to try to cut it.
We are so afraid of doing more damage to her. Her leg was damaged
during hatching -- or she might have fallen, as we found her in the
bathroom window in the bottom of the sill, while her egg and that of
her dead sibling were caught midway up on the top of the open window.
Apparently her hatching efforts or another gecko caused the eggs to
dislodge and they fell. The dead sibling was not fully formed yet.
Although I have not observed her eating, we know she must be. I
gather her little tiny bugs off the fallen leaves from our orchid
tree every day, plus aphids off some of the greenery she likes (we
don't spray poisons), plus the papaya with the fruit flies. And she
pooped on me yesterday after she crawled up onto me. ;)
But there must be an art to catching the fruit flies & injuring
them! I've done that with larger bugs before, but all I have done
with these is crush them. They are so tiny, they just squish when I
try to catch them.
Thanks, Sherron
Lyle Puente wrote:
You have a tough job!
Can you mist her and maybe injure some of the fruit flies to make
them easier catches?
You might need to mist her well and try a fine tweezer to get that
skin off?
Lyle
Lyle Puente
President
Global Gecko Association
http://www.gekkota.org
http://www.MyBrothersBanned.com
http://www.myspace.com/MyBrothersBanned
On Jun 1, 2008, at 7:15 PM, Sherron wrote:
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
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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]
See our rats: http://hale-pohaku.com/dennis/ratgallery.html
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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]
See our rats: http://hale-pohaku.com/dennis/ratgallery.html
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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]
See our rats: http://hale-pohaku.com/dennis/ratgallery.html
_______________________________________________
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http://www.gekkota.com
Classifieds
http://www.gekkota.com/cgi-gekkota/classifieds.cgi
gecko mailing list
[email protected]
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