A Sad Tail

I apologize for not updating the blog in such a long time. Life for me has been changing, and to be honest, the geckos were the ones stagnating! The girls are not laying - I was getting quite frustrated.

I think a lot of the problem is a result of the conditions caused by the apartment I live in. It is an older building and lacks insulation along with having single pane windows. The gecko room's back wall has full southern exposure with no shade, and any day that it's sunny it heats that room up like an oven. That is not to mention the literally history-making heat wave we have been having for months now. It doesn't matter how low I put the AC (and I've closed all the vents except the one to that room), how many fans I have blowing with cold, wet towels and on bottles of ice.... keeping that room's temperature at a safe level has been a constant challenge and major stresser. What stresses me out the most is knowing that the geckos are experiencing a temperature swing every day, which is not good for them. It's not a huge difference, but enough to make me nervous.

With all that said, I don't find it too surprising that the girls are having a bizarre season (also that they're all virgin females and like I've said before, you can't predict them at all). In fact, a few nights ago Liebchen laid me a dud. One egg in the clutch, and infertile. What in the world!? And Perdi, Panic, and Pate (apparently I like P's) have not laid at all (besides the one egg I did get from Panic several months ago). The first set of eggs of Liebchen's were fertile but as I candled them along the way they were not developing normally and I was losing hope for them. Also a few days ago, one of those eggs went moldy. I candled the other and expect it to do the same. Thankfully the few remaining eggs look good.

So today I moved all the geckos to my parent's basement, to the closet of the bedroom I will soon be living in as well. It stays much much cooler there in the summer, and I'm able to control the temperature well with a space heater in the winter. Once everyone settles in I expect them to be better off and for behavior to normalize a bit. I may rebreed everyone, though I have to weigh that with how late in the season it is. It may work out for the best even, since in the winter it's actually warmer with the space heater in that closet than it is in the summer (and warmer temps are a cue for breeding/egg-laying behavior).

However, the sad part of this "tale", is a tail. Obviously all precautions were taken to minimize stress on the geckos during the move, but you can only do so much. Inigo was freaking out when I put him in a car and I actually expected his tail to be the one to pop off. Wesley also freaks out when traveling, and I've thought he was going to lose his a few times. However, tonight when I put everyone to bed I got a look at everyone but Perdi (she sleeps under her paper towels) and tails were all intact except one. I found that my crown jewel, my gorgeous, outstanding, perfect Pongo lost his tail in the move. It may not seem like a big deal to some, but it is to me. I've never had any of my geckos lose a tail in my care, though I do realize it was bound to happen sometime. Thing is - Pongo is a super dalmation, but a huge amount of spots were on his tail. He easily had well over a hundred spots on it alone. I'm just glad I have photos of him "before". *sigh* I'm sorry you were so stressed Pongo, I was doing this to try and make your life better.

So right now my life is being turned upside down, and I hope that something that stabilizes is the geckos. I know they will take some time to settle in (they took weeks when I first moved them to this apartment), but I have high hopes that their lives will improve dramatically with steady temperatures, etc.

And that is how things stand right now! Crazy, basically! The geckos have been moved, and next to go will be me and the cat. We're both suffering from the heat, since to keep the gecko room cool the rest of the apartment was getting no AC. I'm moving due to financial issues and also because of problems like I mentioned with the temperature (not to mention I cannot make it through another winter here - just to watch tv I was in layers, covered with a blanket, half in a down sleeping bag, and in front of a space heater). Wish us all luck, it's going to be an interesting next few weeks.