• Posted 12/19/2024.
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    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

When should I be concerned?

T

tanias16

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Hey there folks

My female leo hasn't eaten in about a week and a half. I noticed that she was starting a shed Sunday evening, and she's still in there shedding today.

That's a first for me, because she always seems to shed and be done over night. She was really milky Sunday night, but today she's still working on it. She's been in humid hide exclusively all week, and although i can tell that her legs have shed, everything else looks like its still in progress. Like I said, she's in her humid hide and its well misted. It has coconut fiber covered by a papertowel to reduce mess.

Its unlike her to not eat everyday also.... She normally stops the day before a shed, but she hasn't eaten a good meal in a couple of weeks. She is still using the restroom, its just very small small amounts. She doesn't seem to have lost any weight, but she doesn't seem to be coming out and walking around as much either.

When I adopted her she was in pretty bad shape, and she ate like a horse everynight from mid- Oct (when I got her) until the end of December. I had to leave her alone for three days during Christmas (out of town), and after that she hasn't been on a normal eating schedule. She started eating big meals only every other day, then just a couple of supers a day, to this... My husband thinks that she's just regulating her intake, she had alot of weight to make up for, and now that she has... she doesn't eat as much. What do you guys think?? I'm really worried!
 
Some additional information would be helpful. What temperatures is she kept at? How old is she? What do you consider a good meal? What do her droppings look like? Sometimes geckos will "cool" themselves during the winter months. During this time they will lower activity, lower feeding (sometimes quitting entirely which drives me CRAZY). This, hopefully, is your "problem." It is not uncommon for geckos to eat every other day, all of my adults are set on this schedule, some even like to eat every third day. As long as your gecko is remaining healthy, there is no signs of parasites or fungal/bacteria infection in the stools (gecko poop), and the temperature is kept at 90 (on the hot end) she should be fine. If any of these problems are present correcting them is essential (and should be very cheep).
 
Sorry, I didn't mean to leave that out. Her temps are 90 on the hot side. She has one humid hide, 1 dry hide on the hot end, and 1 dry hide on the cool end. She use to eat around 13 mealworms a meal, then we switched over to supers, and she probably ate about 6 a meal. That's what I mean by "good meal." Her fecal and urates do not look unusual, they are just very small. My male did the cooling thing earlier, and now he's starting to eat more. She was super active while he was cooling, and now that he's eating, she's not. They are in seperate cages. She is in a 20 g with a UTH. I'm not sure how old she is because I adopted her... she is full grown, and alteast 3 years old. I used to post alot, and I guess I assumed that everyone would remmeber, I know thats silly, I'm just worried and swamped at work.

Gilbey3n5wks.jpg

This is her after I had her for 3 weeks, she has gained even more weight since then, but I don't have any more recent photos (this was probably from late November).
 
Sounds like you have a pig, not a gecko :). From what you've mentioned I would guess it was cooling. I had a female who wouldn't eat for around 3 weeks this year. Despite being stressful to me it had no ill affects on her. The shedding is the main thing that is confusing to me. Perhaps another member will know more about that. I have heard of people putting their geckos in tupperwares with about 1/4 inch of warm water and putting the lid on it for a "steam bath". However, I have no experiance with that so hopefully some one can elaborate, good luck, Chris.
 
Yeah, I'm just not sure if thats necessary since she is staying in her very humid hide... I don't want to stress her out even more. Yikes.
 
I agree, I was just mentioning it in case the problem persists :). Chris
 
It is possible. The owner that had them before me kept the two together. I seperated them as soon as I got them and they have been apart since. I checked her tummy and I don't see anything indicating eggs, but I could be wrong.
 
How long have you had them? If over a year, I would say it's not likely eggs either. :)
 
Well, she spent all last night switching between sitting in her humid hide, and rubbing up against everything in her cage trying to desperately get the skin off of her face. I tried to help but it only stressed her out, so I left her alone. It broke my heart to watch her, she was so miserable. She has never had this much trouble with a shed, and nothing has changed. Well except that I put coconut bark late last week to make sure the humidity was staying up.
I made sure her humid hide was nice and moist while she was out, and headed to bed. This morning I woke up and she had completely re-arranged her cage with all her rubbing. Nothing was in the same place.
It looks like her face is finished shedding, although there is still skin under her chin. I can't see the rest of her from her hide. I thought about putting some mineral oil on the unshed spots in hopes of helping, but I don't want to make anything worse..

Help, I feel so uesless.
 
I think she should be soaked, this has been going on long enough. Most get their shed off within an hours time, this has been days. Granted she has it off her legs, feet and head, but she has got to be stressed trying to get it off. Look at what she did to her home in an attempt to get it off. Poor little girl. I wouldn't worry about stressing her at this point, she's already stressed, so giving her a soak could only help.
 
Some leos will have the occasional bad shed, nobody is perfect all the time.

The one thing you haven't mentioned, and that I would suggest is making sure she's being supplemented properly. Somewhere in my memory, I remember someone commenting on how their vitamins and minerals can affect their shedding ability.

With supers, the best way I find to supplement is to make sure their gutload is high quality, and I spinkle some Miner-Al over them before feeding.

Goodluck!
 
I agree, you should probably give her a nice warm, not hot, bath (About 3/4 inch high I guess will do, never really measured it, low enough so her head isn't in the water. Leave her in for about 10 minutes, and check her over, if you see some unshed skin, try to gently rub it off, or pull it off with tweezers. If it comes off, great. If not, the next day, give her another warm bath, and repeat the rest.

Hopefully this helps
 
Thanks guys, I will try that.
In response to supplements...
I gutload my supers with rolled oats, veggies (mainly potatoes), flukers gutload, and Jurassi-Vite vitamins mixed in thei substrate.
I calcium dust them, and have a dish in the leos cages with calcium. Every couple of weeks I dust them with the vitamins too.

I guess I'll try and soak her during my lunch break today, its breaking my heart watching her go through all this.
 
After soaking if small pieces of skin are still attached try using a wet cutip to get the remainder of the skin off, I've found it to work very well but just rubbing the skin, no risk of accidently hurting her if she decides to get mad and suddenly jerk. Good luck! Chris
 
Thanks Guys! I went home at lunch and she had gotten everything but her tail, lower neck, and tummy. I gave her a 10 minute soak in warm water. While she was in the water I gently rubbed the skin with a q-tip in an attempt to help... she hated it so I finally stopped.
She wasn't in her cage 15 minutes after the soak, and she had almost everything off. I think there was still a little bit of skin under her tummy that was bothering her, but that's it.
Thanks all for your help, I think she feels alot better now. I only wish I had went ahead and done that last night to help her out. I'm hoping she'll try to eat something tomorrow night, I think she's worn herself out today.
 
Looks like the shed is over, but she still wont come out of her humid hide... she just hangs her head out. If she hasn't eaten in a week... how much longer should I wait before I get concerned? I don't know how to tell if she's cooling or if something is wrong.
 
She's eaten two worms since the shed has ended. She's still hanging out in that humid hide of hers, and barely comes out to even give me the opportunity to feed her...
 
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