There's Always a First Time.

We lost our first animal the other day.  It was one of the baby Golden Tail Geckos.  I had held fears for it from the start as it was what you might call the runt of the litter.  It was born a couple of days after it's clutch mate and was just that little bit smaller and less developed.  I saw it trying to catch food, and yet was never quite successful.

One morning about a week after it hatched, I found it curled up in a corner at the front of it's enclosure.  It looked quite out of sorts.  I picked it up and it was listless and the top of its head was what I would describe as almost caved in.  My first thought was dehydration, despite the fact that I mist them regularly.  I put a couple of drops of water in the palm of my hand with it only for the little one to give one final kick before expiring.  Quite a sad little moment.  This is a picture of him the day he was born.

Its clutch mate is going as strong as any of our other geckos.  Feeding and drinking well.  I don't know why the little guy left us so quickly, but, rest in peace little dude.

On a brighter note, the third clutch of Golden Tails hatched yesterday.  They both look very healthy and strong.  Here is one from this morning.  They come out so perfectly ready for action.  Fully formed and ready to go!

The first of the Golden Tail clutches is also going sensationally.  They are just so awesome to watch at night, hunting around their home.  Whilst I am no expert, I think they are now of a size where I can sex them.  I believe that there is one male and one female.  Time will tell of course, but, that would mean we have at least one keeper as I am after a couple more females to put in with my adult male.  The young male will most likely be the first gecko I ever sell.  The bar form seems to be the most popular of the three sub species of Golden Tails so I don't think I will have too much trouble if it comes to it.  But as the saying goes, there is a first time for everything...

What a week!

Action packed on the gecko front.  I was greeted by two new baby geckos first thing Monday morning.  How exciting is that!?  As you can see by the photos they are happy healthy and as cute as it gets.  I will look to get a photo with one of their parents in the same shot to get a size comparison.  But, take my word for it, they are tiny!  Little mini me's as it were.

As small as they are, looking at the photo with one of the eggs from which they emerged in the same frame, it really makes you wonder just how did they fit in there?

Perhaps the most surprising thing for me was the incubation period.  I thought I was a good chance at winning the guess the hatch date competition that I ran at work, but alas, I was out by a couple of weeks!  The eggs hatched after 49 days.  I had expected around 60 based on the research I had done.  However, after posting the images in the 'Gecko Geek Group' that I am a part of, the answers that it was not an unusually short incubation period came thick and fast.  Where were they when I was putting in my guess for the competition I ask you??  Still, I am glad that the guessing competition generated some light hearted fun at work and now I get to try my hand in the kitchen crafting chocolate geckos in the moulds I ordered from the US on eBay.  I think that will require a post of its own...

If you thought that was it for the week, hang on to your hat!  Today, a mere three days after the new babies hatched, Lizzy, their mum, laid two more eggs!  In the image below, you can see that they are just as healthy looking as their siblings' were.  So soon you ask?  It's actually not so much.  It is not uncommon for female Golden Tails in captivity to lay as soon as 4 weeks after their previous clutch and do so several times in succession. In the wild, because of the climate in the small region in Queensland in which they are found, Golden Tails will actually lay all year round.  The incubation period of the eggs will vary seasonally, but, otherwise the temperatures are such that generally, they hatch successfully, natural impediments notwithstanding.  Obviously, males and females are not confined to enclosures and as such no doubt do not breed quite as frequently as they do in captivity.

For that reason, I am going to move Ecko, my male into a separate enclosure to give Lizzy a break.  It is quite possible that she will have some retained sperm and produce further clutches.  But, I am going to try and minimise the chances of more clutches in rapid succession by keeping them apart for a few months.  The idea behind this is to keep Lizzy in the best of health.  Along with Ecko, she has proven that she can produce healthy babies (although this pair had done so with their previous owner also), my responsibility is more than just to enjoy the reproductive process.  It is also to ensure that they are kept in tip top shape.

With any luck one or even both of the babies will be female and I will have nice little colony going.  I will most likely sell any males that are produced.  Out of the 4 eggs, the odds are in my favour to get at least 1 female.  Regardless, I will most likely only ever keep 1-2 males and never more than 1 in the same enclosure.  Just in case.

So there it is.  Quite an action packed few days.

GT Update

The title of this post sounds a bit like something you might type at a command prompt if you are like me an mess about on computers.  Not so of course as that is work and this is far from it :-).

I dragged myself out of my sick bed today to feed my Golden Tail Geckos.  They are in a fairly noisy, high traffic area, which is why I think that I have yet to see them eat terribly much.  By that I mean actually witness it happening.  There has been plenty of evidence of successful digestion to be cleaned up regularly, but, there has certainly not been anything like I witnessed today.

After having chatted with their previous owner in the past few days, I was a little concerned that I had not witnessed the enthusiasm for food that she reported.  She told me that they almost jumped out of their enclosure at food when it was presented.  This has not been my experience, and largely I have put this down to their location.

Today I made sure it was quiet during the feeding and for Lizzy (the female) at least, this made all the difference.  Before I left her to it, I witnessed her take 5 crickets!  I couldn't believe it.  It was satisfying enough to see her down a single insect.  But, to see her almost approach me at the start and then time after time hunt and capture her food was very gratifying.

The series of images in this post depict Lizzy on the prowl.  First locating her prey, then stalking and finally having captured her meal.  This was actually the fourth cricket that she ate.  It was so pleasing to see her enthusiastic for the hunt even after having what I would have considered a full belly.  I should note that she is looking gravid again, so this could be playing a significant part in her appetite.  That should become clear in the next week or two.

Regardless of whether or not there will be two more little gems laid in the coming weeks, it was simply fantastic to witness the fervent activity from Lizzy today.  The grace and dare I say athleticism of efforts are certainly representative of some of the qualities that drew me to want to keep geckos.  Quite pleased with some of the photos I took as well.  Three of which are here of course.  First glimpse of the underside of Lizzy's belly too.  Although worth noting that the potentially expectant mother has hidden her tummy from view to make that assessment somewhat more challenging!  Oh well, something else to look forward to.

The best of days the worst of days...

Today was the absolute definition of a rollercoaster as far as emotions went.  It started with the big time low that ebbed throughout the day.  The high came relatively early to lighten the mood somewhat.

I had my second ever trip to the vet this morning.  Over the weekend I had noticed that Lacey had some roughened scales on her belly that were browned as well as what looked like blistering along the back third of her belly.  It all looked very symptomatic of a burn.  As it was the weekend I consulted a trusted source who confirmed that it looked very much like a burn and perhaps some scale rot thrown in.  Needless to say neither is an particularly inviting prospect.

The world's most caring vet Jan Spate confirmed that it is a belly burn.  It occurred because I use a heat mat underneath Lacey's enclosure that she lies over to draw the heat she needs.  I will go into more detail on the mechanics of how a burn like this occurs and how to avoid it (lesson well and truly learned) in a later post.  Suffice to say that the burn was a result of my mistake and I'm pretty shattered about it.  You can see the nature of the burn in this first photo.  It is not serious and she will recover quickly.  She is eating well and generally appears to be as content as ever.  Loving her food is the way I would describe it.  Gave me a nip last night thinking it was feed time.  I have an ointment from the vet to apply daily.  She ate her latest meal tonight and I will apply the treatment tomorrow morning.  Expect progress updates soon.

On a brighter note, after the early morning run to the vet I went in to work.  First thing was to check on the geckos, now named Lizzy and Ecko after a naming contest with my colleagues.  I noticed sand around the entrance to the lay box which peaked my interest.  Further investigation of the underside of the container and I spied a glimpse of white suggesting that my suspicions about Lizzy were correct.  She had laid two of the smallest eggs I think I have and will ever see. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting by way of size.  Reptiles tend to be measured in terms of 'snout to vent length (SVL).  That's their nose to their bum basically.  Golden Tail Geckos are around 12cm SVL.  So they are not exactly huge.  The two eggs that you can see in the images here are about the size of the very small jelly beans you can buy these days.  I put a five cent piece in the photo for perspective.

Of course as you do, Lizzy buried the eggs in the very very, back bottom corner of the box.  The only indicator really was the sand around the entrance and a little bit of lateral thinking.  Lizzy herself does look a lot slimmer, but, I doubt I would have quite picked that she had laid without a pretty detailed inspection.  I have chosen to use perlite as the medium to incubate the eggs in this time.  It is the white pebbly looking material around the eggs in this second photo.  I found that I was less than entirely happy with using vermiculite this season with the Dragons.  There was mould in the egg containers for the first time in the second clutch.  I'm not sure that the clutch was as strong as the previous ones that Lolly has produced, but, I do think that the vermiculite may have contributed to the outcomes somewhat.  Most of the eggs survived and produced healthy babies.  I just felt that the consistency of the vermiculite may have contributed to the few that were lost.  So I am moving to another commonly used material that just appears to me to be cleaner and retains the moisture in a better way.

I have started another competition at my work to guess the hatching date of the two eggs.  I should mention that geckos only ever lay two eggs, so all is very normal on that front.  I thought the competition was at least another way to try and bring a bit of light into an otherwise shady day.

What's Doing with the Reptiles?

So what's going on with the reptiles?  A lot of nothing in some cases and in others life continues as normal with the odd twist or two.  Half the crew is asleep for the winter in Lolly, Beau and Bruce.  The rest are going along beautifully.

Our newest family members have settled in really well by all indicators.  I am in two minds as to whether or not the female gecko is gravid (pregnant).  She is certainly looking 'chubby' as you can see from these photos taken when I took her out of her enclosure briefly to try and get a better idea of the situation.

I've asked around the appropriate traps of the intermaweb and the collective wisdom is that it is very difficult to tell with the Strophorus family generally.  Apparently with some of the more commonly kept species you can actually see through the skin on the undersides of their bellies when they are gravid and the eggs are clearly visible.  It can be a simple matter of placing the female in a clear container and looking at her from underneath!  Oh for it to be that easy.

Additionally from what I understand, female Golden Tails are larger than their male counterparts and can carry a bit of size around the belly.  This can also make it hard to tell when they are carrying eggs of course as from what I am seeing now, my girl is just as likely to be settling in and feeding well as anything else.  I am also tending to think it is more that she is just faring well in her new home as at this time of year, it would be unusually late to see her produce young.  Not unheard of given the right environmentals, but, unlikely.  So at this stage it's ready on watch for the next couple of weeks.  I had planned to turn the temperatures down for the winter cooling period in preparation for the next breeding season this week.  Now it looks like a couple of weeks just holding station for now.  I have also made a 'lay box' just in case.  This consists of a relatively small plastic container with a hole about the size of a twenty cent piece cut in the top, filled with a moist sand, vermiculite mix.  This is so that the female can dig a tunnel to lay and bury her eggs (should she have them in this case).  It will break the natural look of the enclosure somewhat for the time being.  But, better to play on the safer side of things as it were.

I weighed and measured Lacey today as you can see by the third photo here.  I have not weighed her for a couple of months, but, that is in the main because she has been looking so fit and healthy.  That was confirmed today during the checks.  Since she's been with us, Lacey has doubled in length and is nearly eight times her original weight!  She is looking just fantastic at around 110cms and just shy of 250 grams.  She came out for family cuddles with everyone today and remains an excellent handler, gracefully making her way through the hands of all those 'brave' enough to line up for a touch.  I still maintain that pythons are certainly the best pet that I have come across from the perspective of being something out of the ordinary and most certainly from an ease of care perspective.  Fascinating to look and, handle and interact with generally.  Great pets.  Simple as that.

The Wait is Over!

 It may have taken nearly 3 years to get my license, but, the wait was more than worth it.  Today, we took possession of a pair of Golden Tail Geckos (Strophurus taenicauda triaureus).  They came on a plane from Melbourne and we picked them up at the airport.  This picture is of them still in the container in which they were lovingly packed this morning.

This yet to be named pair are male and female and have successfully bred this season.  Their former owner sold them to me as she is downsizing her collection.  I am completely thrilled at the opportunity this presented me to start keeping geckos with this species and these individuals.  The arboreal Strophurus genus, often called spiney tails caught my eye some time ago, over the more popular terrestrial species commonly kept by enthusiasts.  I like their slender tails and find their markings more appealing to my eyes at least.  Despite often being called spiney golden tails because of their classification, this particular species does not posses the spines often associated with their cousins like Strophurus ciliaris.

Interestingly this species was recently reclassified into three subspecies, hence the triple barrel name of Genus, species and subspecies (Strophurus taenicauda triaureus).  Normally only genus and species are used to classify animals.  The name translated means, turning-tail, stripe-tail, three golden.  This is because not only do these guys have a single well defined golden stripe down the top side of their tails, but, they have one less prominent stripe down either side of their tails as well.  They are commonly referred to as the barred form of golden tails which I assume is because of the neat rows of black and white stripes running vertically opposed to the golden stripes running the length of their tails.  The sub species is also distinct from the two other species in a few other ways, including their amber eye colour.  The other two sub species have red, and white eyes respectively.  If you are interested in reading more, check out the reclassification document on Danny Brown's site GeckoDan.

I must say that I was taken aback when I opened the tightly sealed container and saw these guys in the flesh for the first time.  They are stunningly beautiful and my pictures do not do them justice.  Everything from their amber eyes, black and white markings right through to their golden striped tails is just breathtaking.  I am so looking forward to watching and learning more about these little guys first hand.  With any luck they will breed for me this coming season too.  Another great experience to share with the kids.  For now, they are settling into their new home and I'm trying to think of some groovy names for them.