Baskden a warm den for reptile folk

🩺 Your free vet-prep sheet

Your Mourning Gecko Vet-Prep Sheet

Reptile vets are rare, and it is easy to freeze in a crisis. This is the one page to have ready — how to find a vet, what to bring, what to tell them, and the questions to ask. This helps you prepare for a visit — it is not a way to treat at home. Print it and keep it with your care notes.

Black & white saves ink and prints cleanly on any printer.

Not sure it’s a vet trip yet? Try the Is this normal? triage first — many worries turn out to be a husbandry fix.

Baskden a warm den for reptile folk · baskden.com
Mourning Gecko — Vet-Prep Sheet

🔍 Find a reptile / exotics vet — before you need one

  • Search the ARAV Find-a-Vet directory (the Association of Reptilian & Amphibian Veterinarians), or in the UK the RCVS Find-a-Vet — or search "reptile / exotics vet near me".
  • Call ahead and ask the key question: "Do you see reptiles?" Not every practice does.
  • Ask the exam fee when you call. Knowing the cost up front removes the money-panic in a crisis.
  • Find and save one now, while things are calm — not in the middle of an emergency.

📇 Fill this in now — before the crisis

Two minutes now saves ten in a panic. Print it and keep it with your care notes.

My reptile vet
My mourning gecko
What I'm seeing

🚨 Is this an emergency now?

See a reptile vet promptly if you notice any of these:

  • A rubbery jaw, a kinked spine or tail, or wavy/soft limbs (metabolic bone disease — a real risk in constantly egg-laying females on too little calcium/UVB).
  • A female straining, swollen, and off her food, or visibly egg-bound (dystocia).
  • Sunken, wrinkled skin or stuck shed on the toes and tail (dehydration / bad shed).
  • Gaping, lethargy, and hiding when the tank is too warm (heat stress above ~85°F).
  • A firm, swollen belly with no droppings (impaction), or any tissue protruding from the vent (prolapse).

When in doubt, a vet call is never wrong — most issues are reversible if caught early.

🚗 On the way / while you wait

✅ Do

  • Keep it warm at a safe transport temperature — a cold reptile crashes fast (a warm car or a covered container with a warm, not hot, pack helps).
  • Keep it calm, dark and quiet in a secure, ventilated container — stress makes almost everything worse.
  • Bring it in its own container so the vet sees it as it lives.

⛔ Don't

  • Don’t offer food, or any OTC, aquarium-shop or online-forum remedy — many are useless or harmful and can mask the signs.
  • Don’t let it get cold on the way in.
  • Don’t handle it more than you must.

🎒 What to bring

  • A short video and a couple of clear photos of the behaviour or sign — it may not show it in the clinic.
  • A note of your setup (basking, cool-side and night temperatures, UVB, humidity, substrate) and exactly what — and how often — you feed.
  • Your reptile, transported safely in its own secure, ventilated container — kept warm (see below), not in a cold car.

🗣️ What to tell the vet

A general vet may not know this species. Come ready to explain its correct care:

Temperature
A gentle warm spot of 80–85°F (26–29°C) at the top of the tank from a low-wattage bulb — NOT the "no heat, room temperature is fine" myth. Consistently above 85°F risks heat stroke. Cooler lower zone 70–75°F (21–24°C), giving a vertical gradient. Consistently at or below 72°F causes lethargy and poor appetite. Night 65–72°F (18–22°C) — a natural drop is fine.
UVB & lighting
UVB is beneficial even though they’re often kept without it — it noticeably helps healthy growth, especially in hatchlings. A low-output T5 HO bulb (Arcadia ShadeDweller 2.4%) giving UVI 1.0–3.0. Because they bask upside-down right against the top mesh, pick a bulb rated safe at that short distance. Replace yearly.
Humidity
Ambient 60–70%, spiking to 80–90% after misting, then allowed to dry back to 50–60% before you mist again (constant wetness grows mould). Mist 1–2× daily depending on ventilation. Live plants help hold humidity and give the colony cover.
Enclosure
Small and VERTICAL: 2–3 adults do well in a 12×12×18 in (30×30×45 cm) planted arboreal tank — roughly a 10-gallon on its end — adding about 5 gallons of space per extra 2 geckos. They are arboreal, so height and dense planting matter more than floor space. Seal every gap: they are minute escape artists that climb glass and hang upside-down from the mesh.
Substrate
A moisture-holding bioactive-style mix (topsoil / coconut fibre) topped with leaf litter, planted with pothos and other sturdy climbers. For an arboreal micro-gecko the vertical cover matters more than the floor.
Diet
Easy: a complete powdered crested-gecko diet (CGD) as the base — keep a few flavours/brands on hand — plus small live insects (fruit flies, pinhead crickets, small roaches) a couple of times a week for enrichment and protein. They lap CGD from a ledge dish and hunt the insects at dusk.
Supplements
Lightly dust the feeder insects with calcium + D3 — this matters MORE than for most geckos, because a self-cloning colony lays eggs constantly and that drains calcium. A good CGD already carries much of the vitamin load, so don’t over-do the multivitamin.

⚕️ Reptiles are ectotherms kept at species-specific temperatures — a cold reptile can’t metabolise medicines properly, so tell the vet your exact temperatures and keep it warm for transport. Reptiles are prey animals and hide illness until it is advanced, so early changes matter. Mention your UVB/lighting and any supplements or remedies you’ve already used, and ask for reptile-safe products and doses.

Then note which of the warning signs (above) you are seeing, when they started, and whether they are getting worse.

❓ Questions to ask

  • Do you routinely see reptiles? If not, can you refer me to a vet who does?
  • What are the likely causes — and could my setup or diet be contributing?
  • What is the treatment plan, the likely cost, and what should I watch for at home?
  • How do I prevent this from happening again?