Upper Respiratory and Eye Infections

I was given two female leopard geckos, a beautiful raptor morph and a super giant. They were free because they had URIs and eye infections. It's been a few weeks since I stopped oral baytril for the URI, no symptoms, but they still can't see meal worms well enough to eat them or they just aren't interested and I've run out of the powdered carnivore supplement(dog ate it....). The giant is fat as hell, so I'm not as concerned about her taking some time to get her appetite as the other, as she is slightly underweight already.

First question: They can be little turds and sometimes try to bite.. If their mouth is open, can I force feed them by getting them to chomp down on some worms?

The eye infections were tough and scary at first and they are SLOWLY making progress.. But I noticed the ointment I was giving them had a steroid component and I don't like using that when they already have a suppressed immune system so today I switched to erythromycin instead of neomycin, anyone have an experience with that?

Lastly, I have two other females I've been waiting to place in with these two... I'm assuming it's really not safe to introduce them while they are still recovering from the eye infections as it can spread? I could sure use the consolidated cage space! =(

Hey
Welcome to the forum.
I don't know much about gecko health problems.. but the other members will definately be able to help you with that.
But leopard geckos shouldn't really be kept together.. some people have successfully kept females in the same tank if they all have enough room and seperate hides to sleep in, but they can fight and bully one another so it's best not to risk it.

Hi there and welcome to the forum.

Have you taken them to a reptile vet?

The only experience i have with RI's is in snakes, bosc monitor and bearded dragons but i have treated 3leo's with eye problems one 2for retained shed that had rubbed and damaged the eye which was treated with Tiacil Ophthalmic and the other was a abcess behind the eye treated with Exocin Eye Drops, i dont know if either of those would help your 2.

you can make up a syringe feedable diet which is detailed in the fussy eaters post.

While you are still treated the 2girls you should keep them seperate and well away from your others as they can easily pass on the RI if they are kept in the same room.

Hi welcome to the forum.

I must urge you to read through these rules though as you have broken one of them: http://www.leopardgeckoforum.com/h2-forum-rules-and-consequences

This site is open to anybody to read, and it is kept friendly and inviting, so please don't use words like 's**t'.
I understand its not a big deal in US, but here in the UK and many other places its a very strong word which can be found offensive by others.
I understand your new, so there will be no consequence for this, but please don't use it again.

But on to your problem, i've personally never treated any eye infections so i won't be much help there.

However i can help with your feeding. Force feeding is very stressful for them and may prove to be worse and detremental to their health rather than helping them. There is though something similar called assist feeding, which is considered to be much less stressful.
This involves tapping the gecko on the side of the jaw, or both sides, which will cause them to open their mouth, once gtheir mouth is open simply pop a worm in. Once the gecko is comfortable with it, they will open their mouth freely. But careful that you don't do it too much or they will become dependant of this method. Try and get some food in them, but leave them hungry and wanting more, with a motivation to catch worms.
about 20 worms in a bowl (which the worms can't escape from) and leave it in their enclosure overnight, they are then bound to eat some.

Good luck.

Thanks guys for the help! The Erythromycin is AWESOME! After 3 applications both of them have one eye that pretty much 100% and the other isn't far behind.. I'm a veterinary technician so I have a general idea of what I'm talking about, I'm just not specialized in exotics. =)

They had a good shed today and tomorrow I'm going to try letting them eat freely before I try the method Jordan gave me.

As far as putting them together.. There are 3 hides plus foliage and two water dishes, would you still not put 4 females together? I typically feed them one at a time in a small separate cage.

Thanks again, and no more swear words!

Glad to here they are doing better.

Once they are completely better i would keep them together as long as you have lots of space and hides, i used to have 2 4ftx2ftx20inch vivs with 10 females in each but some people wont agree with that being done.

I'm glad to hear that your leos are getting better
I hope they get well soon =]

If you do keep them together.. you should have 2 hides per gecko IMO, so they each have one hide on the hot side of the tank, and one on the cool side.. and a big-sh moist hide that they can all sit in. But that's just want i think.

CrustyDiamond wrote:
They had a good shed today and tomorrow I'm going to try letting them eat freely before I try the method Jordan gave me.

Yeah thats a good idea, also don't forget the stress of things will likely put them off food for a couple of days, so give them a few days before you decide that they defnitely aren't eating by themselves.

CrustyDiamond wrote:
As far as putting them together.. There are 3 hides plus foliage and two water dishes, would you still not put 4 females together? I typically feed them one at a time in a small separate cage.

Personally i think 3 hides is enough or maybe 4 would be better, as long as they are a bit bigger than average.
If a fight breaks out (which is always possible), then being squashed up in a small hide makes it ten times worse.
If you have a big enough enclosure, what i would suggest would be to create two different hot spots. That way there is no fight or bullying or dominance over the best spot.
Obviously don't make two hot sides, they need a cool side to cool down, but two different hot area's. I'm sure you get what i mean lol

CrustyDiamond wrote:
Thanks again, and no more swear words!

Appreciate it, thanks

Hey.. sorry I'm kinda late on the draw on this one but it sounds like things have improved since your original post... just my few cents...

Jordan I'm gonna disagree a lil with you here... one leo is a healthy fat giant female, the other is an underweight normal female (meanign not giant). It is generally frowned upon placing 2 leos in a co-habitational situation when they are not equal in size and temperament. Yours might have amicable temperaments for now but there are age milestones coming along that could change a lot of that fast and violently.

We don't have enough good info about her viv to even offer a suggestion on whether or not it is large enough for 4 leos to be properly housed together. We need dimensions of your tank, and your husbandry as far as heat, substrait etc. before we can advise on that, which is why we ask you to fill out our care questionaire when asking health related questions.

It would be really helpful if you could fill out our care questionaire so that we can see if there are any husbandry issues that might be supressing your leos appetites aside of the obvious medical conditions and if it would be wise to make a community of the 4 females you have...

http://www.leopardgeckoforum.com/t134-please-read-and-fill-out-with-your-health-questions

Please copy/paste the questionaire in your response with your answers included.

I would not be comfortable keeping 2 incompatibally sized leos together even with a huge tank and multipul hides fort each. I certainly wouldn't be comfortable making it a community of 4 females in one cage esp. with 2 being debilitated. You don't mention the approximate ages of the leos involved in this.

I was also wondering what was the source of the eye infections? Was it bacterial, viral or some sort of abrasion that got infected?
What is your habitat like?

As far as the not eating thing... I would wait at least 2 days after a shed to offer food to a leo simply because they eat their sheds.. that's one heck of a BIG meal. I know my helathy 1 year old male won't eat a decent meal for about 3 days after a shed. He is fed 3x a week. If he's expected to shed on a monday, he doesn't get fed... then on his wednesday feeding I'll be lucky to get him to eat 1 superworm, but by friday's feeding he's back on a regular amount of feeders. A

s much as I hate suggesting crickets as feeders because of the parasite potential, if your leos visual acuity is impacted a larger more mobile, visually eye catching prey item could benefit. I would pull the rear jumper legs off to make it a little easier to catch, or maybe just 1 so it can be more eye catching, yet still easier to catch.

So looking forward to yuor answers to the care questionaire, and keep up the good work on getting the eyes cleared up.

Kermit wrote:Jordan I'm gonna disagree a lil with you here... one leo is a healthy fat giant female, the other is an underweight normal female (meanign not giant). It is generally frowned upon placing 2 leos in a co-habitational situation when they are not equal in size and temperament. Yours might have amicable temperaments for now but there are age milestones coming along that could change a lot of that fast and violently.

We don't have enough good info about her viv to even offer a suggestion on whether or not it is large enough for 4 leos to be properly housed together. We need dimensions of your tank, and your husbandry as far as heat, substrait etc. before we can advise on that, which is why we ask you to fill out our care questionaire when asking health related questions.

Your right Kel, completely overlooked that.

You need to be aware that if a fight kicks out your giant can rip pieces out of the smaller one, and will likely be fatal.
Also a dominance will often occur, meaning the smaller will get last picking on food, if any food at all, and last turn on the heat spots.

As Kel Mentioned the questionnaire would be helpful, its not too long.