# Lizards > Rhacodactylus Geckos >  My Crestie's tail kink? Should I remove it?

## brobertson

Okay, so my Crested gecko has always had a bit of a weird tail, it would never go seamlessly from body to tail, there would be a bump. Now, I have noticed his link growing more apparent and the tail also sagging to the side. He did have a phase where he hung on the glass, but I added more decor. Now, I am thinking that he may have floppy tail syndrome. I don't want him to damage his hips from this, so I was wondering if I should do anything like amputate? Let me know what you think!

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## brobertson

Bada bump

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## CushtaMinge89

I see you have the same iPhone charger as me ha.

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## dr del

Hi,

Can you go over his diet for us?


dr del

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_brobertson_ (02-09-2013)

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## brobertson

> Hi,
> 
> Can you go over his diet for us?
> 
> 
> dr del


He has as much CGD as he wants every other night, with crix very sporadically (maybe once every month or two) He is definitely a little boy, only 15 grams at 18 months, but I think that he is pretty healthy overall.

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## brobertson

Anyone?

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## OctagonGecko729

Do not amputate that tail. That animal has some signs of MBD, the most tell tale one being his jaw structure. We have a similar animal (Twinkie) which has the same issue. Just let him be, MBD is irreverseable but you can slow down its progression. How old was this animal when you got him? 

You can give him one or two completely caked insects a week with Repashy's Calcium Plus. You can also provide him UVB but go with a very low wattage bulb to avoid the temps getting too high. I'd recommend the exo terra 2.0 or 5.0 uvb tropical bulbs.

 I also would not breed him if you had plans to. The problem with MBD is that you do not know if it is a primary disease of a healthy animal who did not always have the right husbandry or if he had a genetic problem which lead to less than sufficient absorption of vitamins which then led to MBD.

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Kaorte (02-10-2013)

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## brobertson

> Do not amputate that tail. That animal has some signs of MBD, the most tell tale one being his jaw structure. We have a similar animal (Twinkie) which has the same issue. Just let him be, MBD is irreverseable but you can slow down its progression. How old was this animal when you got him? 
> 
> You can give him one or two completely caked insects a week with Repashy's Calcium Plus. You can also provide him UVB but go with a very low wattage bulb to avoid the temps getting too high. I'd recommend the exo terra 2.0 or 5.0 uvb tropical bulbs.
> 
>  I also would not breed him if you had plans to. The problem with MBD is that you do not know if it is a primary disease of a healthy animal who did not always have the right husbandry or if he had a genetic problem which lead to less than sufficient absorption of vitamins which then led to MBD.


Woah, you got me scared! You really think he has MBD  :Sad:  
I got him as a tiny baby, and he has always had great care. He hasn't ever eaten baby food or anything, only CGD and dusted crickets. Based on the diet, I'm guessing this is the genetic issue you speak of, he was a pet store gecko. 

What are MBDs implications in geckos? I know that it's real bad in beardies and other diurnal lizards, but I rarely hear about it in crestie's. Is he gonna have serious health issues? Would a vet visit be good? Panicking a bit, please help!

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## OctagonGecko729

> Woah, you got me scared! You really think he has MBD  
> I got him as a tiny baby, and he has always had great care. He hasn't ever eaten baby food or anything, only CGD and dusted crickets. Based on the diet, I'm guessing this is the genetic issue you speak of, he was a pet store gecko. 
> 
> What are MBDs implications in geckos? I know that it's real bad in beardies and other diurnal lizards, but I rarely hear about it in crestie's. Is he gonna have serious health issues? Would a vet visit be good? Panicking a bit, please help!


You caught it really early. So your animal shouldn't develope the serious problems associated with MBD like bone fractures. The one thing we don't know is how long an animal has to be exposed to bad husbandry for it to develope MBD later in life. 

Our MBD gecko Twinkie was purchased at an expo and he weighed around 4g at the time and showed no signs at all. Once he hit around 10g it started becoming apparent. Once we realized what it was though we just bumped up his CGD feedings and toss him some calcium caked bugs every now and then. We seem to have slowed the progression of it. 

So basically, he will be just fine but he will be somewhat of a special needs animal. I wouldn't recommend breeding him just because we do not know if there is a genetic component or not. The vet probably won't be able to tell you much at this stage, your animal has not started to break down bone to supply calcium to his blood so an X-ray likely won't show anything. Like I said though, just toss a 2.0 or 5.0 UVB Exo Terra UVB bulb on top of his cage and purchase some kind of electrical timer for it to cut on for 2-4 hours a day and then cut off.

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## brobertson

> You caught it really early. So your animal shouldn't develope the serious problems associated with MBD like bone fractures. The one thing we don't know is how long an animal has to be exposed to bad husbandry for it to develope MBD later in life. 
> 
> Our MBD gecko Twinkie was purchased at an expo and he weighed around 4g at the time and showed no signs at all. Once he hit around 10g it started becoming apparent. Once we realized what it was though we just bumped up his CGD feedings and toss him some calcium caked bugs every now and then. We seem to have slowed the progression of it. 
> 
> So basically, he will be just fine but he will be somewhat of a special needs animal. I wouldn't recommend breeding him just because we do not know if there is a genetic component or not. The vet probably won't be able to tell you much at this stage, your animal has not started to break down bone to supply calcium to his blood so an X-ray likely won't show anything. Like I said though, just toss a 2.0 or 5.0 UVB Exo Terra UVB bulb on top of his cage and purchase some kind of electrical timer for it to cut on for 2-4 hours a day and then cut off.


Okay, I'll work on supplying more dusted crix and CGD, and I'll try to get a UVB bulb. Do you think that an expired UVB bulb from my beardie would give off a little bit of UVB? Also, here's my setup in case you can spot anything wrong with it



He has a bunch of fake and a few real plants, along with some wooden decor. The small light on top gives a bit of additional heat during the day, and I think I can get a new UVB bulb for that. I most heavily in mornings and nights, then let it taper during the day. 

I am at a loss right now as to how this happened. My husbandry has always been solid and he seemed healthy, if a bit small. Was I just really unlucky and picked an unhealthy gecko, or is it something I did? Thanks for the help, I really hope the little guy is alright.

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## Kaorte

Do you know what they were feeding him at the pet store? 

I also agree it looks like MBD  :Sad:

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_brobertson_ (02-10-2013)

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## brobertson

> Do you know what they were feeding him at the pet store? 
> 
> I also agree it looks like MBD


You may be on to something, I never saw any CGD at that store, I had to get it somewhere else. Maybe they fed him baby food when he was a little one  :Sad:  Could his diet at a young age have caused this MBD now?

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## OctagonGecko729

I doubt you did anything wrong. 

I might not have worded in correctly in my previous post but basically I'm assuming one of three things happened to him.

A.) He has a genetic defect which is not allowing him to absorb proper nutrients into his bloodstream but his care was perfect from day 1, meaning its no ones fault.

B.) He does not have a genetic defect but his early care (probably not in your hands) was bad which lead to early MBD, meaning its the pet stores fault.

C.) A mixture of A and B. He had a genetic defect and his early care was crap, meaning again its the pet stores fault.


And actually I just thought of another possibility. Which is that his mother was not supplemented properly during the season and so he got or was susceptible to MBD at a very young age, possibly pre-hatch.

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_brobertson_ (02-11-2013)

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## brobertson

Okay, let's go over this one more time

UVB bulb

More crix, dust them really heavily

Increase the amount of CGD I feed

One last thing that I wanted to get some input on is potentially switching him to a tub setup. The tub I was looking at was 64 qt a, 23.5 by 12 by 15 tall. I was thinking that by doing this, the little guy would probably find CGD more easily, and if he has bone issues, the tip can e more cluttered so he doesn't have to jump around as much. Lastly, humidity would be easier to keep. Let me know what you think!

Thanks,

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