# Sudden Leopard Gecko death??



## JadeReed (Sep 23, 2013)

Hi there,

I had a 3 year old leopard gecko that was fit an healthy last night, but checked on her early this afternoon to find she had died suddenly, could anyone offer any suggestions?

She was eating well, active at 2am when I last saw her and had plenty of calcium in a bowl and sprinkled on her food. She was eating morio worms most recently. I checked her for signs of what could have been wrong when I found her but she has no strange marks, is the same size and shape... hasn't changed at all recently!

I check her everyday and had found no problems or changes- it was very sudden. Can anyone offer any advice? Possibly some unidentifyable disease? I would really like to know in case it was something I did, so if I get another in the future it doesn't happen again as i'm devastated.
Oh also, I found her laid flat on her back which I thought odd, I've never seen her on her back either?

I realise the best way to find out is a PM, but unfortunately I just can't afford it at the moment 

Thanks,
Jade


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## MacAoidh (Mar 3, 2013)

Sorry for your loss


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## GoodbyeCourage (Aug 14, 2013)

I'm sorry for your loss, it's awful losing something so suddenly
However, to help determine what may have caused your Leo's death we could do with some other info. What were its hot and cold side temps, and what was used to control them? What were you using to supplement? Was it housed alone? What were you feeding/how often? What size viv? Also what substrate? Sorry for all the questions, may be able to help us figure out what happened


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## Ryanb0401 (Dec 21, 2012)

The best way to find out what's wrong is to get post-mortem done by a vet.

Put your gecko in a sandwich tub in the fridge (not the freezer!) until you can get the PM done, if you'd like to find out.


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## Zangetsu (Sep 20, 2013)

Sorry for your loss,
if you have sand it might have died from impaction maybe?


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## JadeReed (Sep 23, 2013)

Hi, thanks for your help. 

I only had one thermometer in the viv, more on the warm side then the cool but it was 28 degrees celsius (82 fahrenheit) on average, and I used a heat mat covering 1/3-1/2 of the vivarium. She was housed alone and had been her whole life.
I used "Vetark Professional Calci-Dust" to supplement her. She constantly had a bowl full of this in her tank and I also sprinkled her food with it every now and then to ensure she got enough.
She was originally eating large mealworms (as she's 3 so fully grown) but recently tried her on Morio worms as the pet shop were out of mealworms. She seemed fine with them though and was eating fine- I gave her about 5 every other day. I tried her on several different type/size crickets but she has just never seemed to like them and didn't eat them, so only worms. She also had the occasional wax worm as a treat.
The substrate I used was Calci-Sand.

Hope this helps a little


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## Laureneve (Sep 5, 2013)

I'm so sorry to hear that 

The only thing that caught my attention was the calci-sand even though people use it for their adults and it should be digestable, if the gecko was to ingest enough of the sand it could become impacted. However it was eating and normally a sign of impaction is lack of appetite. Without a pm. it is difficult to say anything for sure.


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## JadeReed (Sep 23, 2013)

Would there be any signs of death by impaction? Like physical signs, on the body or anything?
She looked totally normal even after dying, so if there are no signs this could possibly be that.
Do you know whether her being on her back would have any particular reason too? Or does this normally happen when death occurs.
Sorry for all the questions!


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## vgorst (Sep 27, 2011)

All we can do is speculate, a PM would be much more beneficial and should give you the answers you need. Symptoms of impaction is bloating, bruising/internal bleeding, no pooing etc.

From the description of your setup and care, I would be concerned about the temperature and lack of D3 supplementation. If that is indeed the floor reading on the hot side of the tank it was far too low - 90F+ is more appropriate. Switching to morio's and having those low temperatures could have _potentially _causedproblems.

Lack of D3 probably won't have caused death without showing very obvious symptoms of MBD, however it could have caused internal problems.

Can't say about the lying on the back, the only death I've had (a deformed hatchling) was found on his back so it could be a common stance.


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