2 weeks with Omacatl, the albino leo

[volcanopele]

I have had my albino (Temper I believe) leopard gecko for more than two weeks now, and so far things are going great. With the help of advice from this site and others, Omacatl is really starting to adjust and is now comfortable with his new home. He/she now has tile for a substrate, one moist and two dry hides, and is eating very, very well (okay, he is eating well enough for me to wonder when he will start oinking). Seriously, he is doing very well.

Omacatl appears to be 2 months seeing that he is 4-4.5 inches long. Don't know his gender yet, since he is a lone gecko, I figure I will cross that bridge when I need to.

While he is doing very well, I do have a few questions:

1) What kind of treats should I consider for Omacatl considering his size? I go to Petsmart for his food needs (simply because it is closer but there is a herp-specific store across town), and I ususally get him crickets. I feed him 8 gutloaded and dusted crickets each evening. What additional treats could I feed him at this stage, however, for a little variety. At the Petsmart I go to, I see they have canned silkworms and mealworms. I am considering checking out the herp store after work today so I can check out what they have in terms of feeder animals so a list of recommendations for his size would be helpful before I go in. The reason I ask is that even though Omacatl is eating heartily and his poo looks normal, his tail doesn't seem to be gaining much in size. Maybe this is just a simple matter of feeding more than my arbritrary limit of 8/evening.

2) I've noticed that I rarely see my leo drink out of his water dish. It's not that he hasn't noticed the dish, he just never seems to drink out of it. That's not to say he may never drink, I am gone much of the day at work and I am asleep much of the night and miss the second half of his "day". So it's quite possible he drinks out of his water dish and I just miss it. Anyways, after I changed the paper towels in his moist hide (he has a Ziploc container for a moist hide thats lined with moist paper towels), I noticed him go into the hide part way and start licking the paper towels for a few minutes. So it appears that he gets much of his water from licking the moist paper towels. Considering where his species is from, it makes some sense, that they would derive moisture from moist objects they find, rather than from open pools of water. Just wondering if others have seen similar behavior in their leos? On a related question, I have the moist hide set up on the cool side along with a small dry hide, and a larger dry hide with a roof suitable for basking under his infrared bulb (on during the evenings for viewing, and to be on in the winter for an additional heat source). This was based on the first set of advice I received. It appears from posts here that most keep the moist hide on the warm side of the cage. Given the warm climate I live in (southern Arizona), is it a problem to have the cage setup the way I have, or should I switch it? Omacatl seems content, he spends much of his time now in the moist hide, at least for the last 4 or 5 days, when he used to be on the warm side.

Thanks for everyones help here, particularly the recent thread about scheduling which supplements to use when.

[gex236]

it takes time for them to get bigger. That's a good diet that he has. You could buy real silkworms or mealies for variety but the canned stuff is no good. People also feed waxworms for treats, but thats all. They should only be fed about 1 time a week or they will get "addicted." The moist hide should be on the warm side. Otherwise it's just wet, not humud. You may only see your leo drink once or twice a year really, don't worry about that.

[LeoMaster3012]

Great to hear Omacatl is doing good! and as for your questions...
1) Waxworms make a good treat. make sure you only feed 2 every week as they are "leo crack"
2) and yes I only see mine drink out of the humid hide. I've seen Dr. Pepper drinking out of the dish once and that was when i got her i put her in the cage and she ran straight through it and said "wow clean water!" and was drinking for 5-10 minutes.

[herpfanatic]

you might want to switch the moist hide back. on the cool side it wont stay moist- just damp and cold and it wont help much with shedding which is what it is there for. when you feed him do you feed him as much as he will eat in 10-20 minutes or just 8 each time. leos know their own limits (unlike people lol) and will eat until they are full so you can keeo dropping krickets in until he decides he doesnt want anymore. it might help fatten his tail up too. btw, forget the canned food- not only do leos not eat predead food or food that doesnt move, the food most likely wasnt gutloaded and t probably loses nutrition once it is canned. as for treats- waxworms are great treats for leos. i fed one to leona last night and she snapped it right out of my fingers. the only thing you have to be careful of is feeding too many as they can be addictive and then your leo wont eat anything else. treat waxworms like a candy bar and dont give your leo more than one or two a week. waxworms have very little nutrition and tons of fat so it should probably help fatten you leos tail even more. in addition to feeding your leo crickets you can also feed it mealworms which are totally easy to keep- you can keep them in the fridge until you are ready to gutload them, and they are also a nutritous staple. you just have to make sure they are small enough for your leo to eat.

[volcanopele]

Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately, the herp store I went to stopped selling waxworms recently because they weren't cost effective

I switched the positions of the hides. The moist hide is now on the warm side, though now condensation is definitely showing up on the roof of the hide. I am looking to put the other hide (that was the cool side dry hide) on the warm side, but positioning it is going to be interesting. That would effectively be in the toilet corner. I'll figure it out, it just going to take a little more creativity...

[herpfanatic]

just as long as you do have a dry hide on the cool side as well. i think you can also order waxworms online. i was looking around for good, not to expensive feeders for leos and waxworms were on a couple of sites. thats only if you are still interested. i dont know how many or few you can get and you wouldnt want a ton of them but just in case you were still interested.

[DarkLeopard47]

How do you pronounce that? Oh-ma-cattle? I like the name, very interesting.

[volcanopele]

close. oh-ma-CAH-tl. It is the name of an Aztec god of happiness and festivity. However, I named my leo after a dark splotch on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan that maybe a volcano (at least that is my interpretation...).

[DarkLeopard47]

Wow, thats pretty cool. Im going to look in my chem and bio books from school and try to find a name.

[LeoGeckos-Rule]

thats a well nice name