Unfortunately, Bazarak was not the only death to come. Not long after he passed, my husband and I made the move to Missouri from Kansas. It was quite the series of trips as we had all the geckos to move (I may do a gecko moving tutorial with all my photos from that trip - nobody even lost a tail, it went well), my fish who I had owned for many years, my cat, 2 still fairly new-to-us kittens, two dogs, and two horses! Oh and don't forget the plants, including the philodendron with ten plus feet of vines... Thankfully we all safely made it to our beautiful new home which is now our wonderful farm (we fenced and cross-fenced our ~6 acres and added 3 horses and 10 chickens).
It was awhile after moving that anything went wrong - I don't blame any of it on that. First was Páyos, my rubber boa and first and only snake. She was originally wild caught and not knowing her history, she may have simply died from old age. It was an unexpected loss and I did take it hard, as I do with any of my animals. Then I started hatching out my first agricolae babies, which was exciting! I had 4. Now I have 2, and both of them are deformed from MBD (Metabolic Bone Disease). The two babies that died were sudden and again, unexpected. They were eating and behaving normally one day and dead the next. With the problems that the two survivors began to exhibit - trouble shedding and signs of MBD, I figured that the food I had switched my collection over to (more on this later) might just not have enough calcium in it for this species, and/or the food their mother was fed when she laid their eggs (Repashy) caused a problem. It was the sole food for my hatchlings as they were uninterested in bugs. So I started giving calcium glubionate orally to the two survivors and putting them in front of a UVA/UVB light. It worked, they made it. Both have permanent deformities and look a bit strange, but are now healthy and doing well on yet a different commercial diet (one I'm happy with and sticking with). However, *dun dun dun*, at the same time I was losing babies, I also lost Cobble, my adult female agricolae and mother to the babies. I was devastated - she was not only expensive, but from an uncommon lineage and valuable to the gene pool. I chose not to have her necropsied, but from what I could tell she was not egg bound and there were not external signs of trauma. My only guess is that she may have died from the diet they were on at the time, or more likely from the Repashy previously as that's what she was eating for a long time before I switched the collection over to a new food.
So what's all this talk about food? Well, take what I say with a grain of salt. This is just my personal experience and opinions and I am well aware that many believe differently. However, with that said, I no longer feed Repashy CGD, what used to be the gold standard for feeding geckos such as cresteds and gargoyles. Repashy came out with a "Version 3.0" and that was when my problems started. It was not at all well-received by my collection as a whole and they ate VERY little of it. I had one female, Perdi, go on a starvation diet, no matter what I did for her. She was a healthy adult female and then whittled away to 17 grams - she was literally skin over bones. I could see all the bones in her skull (I was sure she was doing to die so didn't get one, but now I wish I had a "before" picture to compare to her these days). After several months of my collection not eating much, the deaths began - first with Rohka. Then Bazarak, who I chose to have necropsied to see if I could get any answers at all. No answers, nothing came up abnormal, even on pathology I had sent out.
I'd never lost babies like this before, so what had changed? The food! That's it. Absolutely nothing else had changed pertaining to my husbandry. I reached out to the gecko community and found I was not the only one having problems. Breeders (even some "big names") were having poor egg production, bad egg shell formation, dead hatchlings in the egg, failure to thrive hatchlings, and overall a poor feeding response. Not everyone was experiencing this but there were enough in the same boat as me that I decided to try a new diet on the market that was also touted as "complete", "Big Fat Gecko Smoothie Mix", or BFG. My collection immediately started to eat better, even the first night I fed it I noticed a drastic change. My husband and I charted the percent eaten for awhile and proved to ourselves that they were progressively eating more. I also tried Clark's gecko diet, but had a less enthusiastic feeding response, so it was back-shelved. Then the problems with the agricolae happened. I didn't know what to do, I thought I was stuck having to supplement extra calcium and watching everyone like a hawk. Thankfully, Matt Parks at Pangea Reptile had been hard at work on a diet of his own, and he soon offered it to the public. Feeding responses were reported to be great, eggs were good, and people were reporting faster growing hatchlings. I had to try it! Worked like a magic charm and I won't go back. I'm thrilled with it, my gang loves it and many of them completely lick their dishes clean. I haven't gone through a breeding season with it yet - that will be next year - but I'm not worried. I have heard nothing but good things from breeders feeding this food. I wouldn't hesitate to say this diet is the new standard for gecko food. I'd recommend Pangea Fruit Mix Complete Gecko Diet to anyone, and I will never recommend Repashy again (in fact, I'll do the opposite). I had mixed results with the BFG, but in my opinion I'd say it can be a decent diet if regularly supplemented with properly gut-loaded and calcium dusted insects (good with any diet, IMO more important with some than others such as this one).
My mental/emotional recovery from all of this has been slow, and for awhile it was hard to be around the geckos at all. Then, a few months after we moved, in October of 2013, I took a fall jumping my horse and fractured a vertebrate in my back. That made it literally impossible to care for the geckos and my husband can never be thanked enough for all the times he has sprayed and fed them for me as I recovered. Apparently a broken back wasn't enough either, so in July of this year I had surgery for excision of endometriosis. That recovery was very long, painful, and slow as my tolerance for narcotics is very low and I literally recovered on Tylenol (NOT recommended)! I'm finally starting to get some of my energy and motivation back and part of that has been with the geckos. I have renewed my focus and narrowed down my goals/projects. I have purchased some outstanding new animals to help me achieve those goals, and I will soon be parting with those that no longer fall within the projects I want to work with. It's already is very difficult trying to decide who I have to say goodbye to and sell, but I'm working on it. (Keep your eyes peeled for my sale, and all the new animals being added - I'm slowly updating the website!) I look forward to breeding in 2015, I have missed having little baby cresties and gargs around! I have some stellar animals these days (who really need photos so you all can appreciate them too, I'm long overdue for a gecko photoshoot and I know it) and I am confident they'll produce great offspring.
Here's to a mental, emotional, physical recovery.... and most of all to a fresh start!
P.S. I also lost all the fish I brought with me from Kansas due to a late-appearing disease on a fish from a local fish store, and due to the sadness and stress of fighting for and ultimately losing fish I'd had for 6+ years (with the potential to live much longer), my largest (and only currently running) fish tank is being revamped into a turtle tank! In fact, tomorrow my new baby Northern Diamondback Terrapins arrive. Make sure to check out their page in the collection!
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