Here in the ESG Mud-Hut-in-the-Desert, I have a friendly Gecko, who I'm told loves to feast on flies, mossies, ants, and other such unwelcome guests in the hut.

My problem is that he's (or maybe she's) not 100% efficacious and I have to lend a hand with Bayer's Baygon for the ants etc, and a can of Raid fron the flying pests, and I'm concerend about the health dangers to my Gecko.

Question - will geckos eat the insects that I kill, and possibly be hurt by the poisons that I use, or do they only eat "live, fast-running" prey, and so are not at risk.

This is really worrying me and I'm not sure if it should be posted here, or in Agony Aunt - I posted here due to the higher readership.

Any thoughts?

flying pests,
(that was the "aviation connection" :E )

Would you eat a lamb that you knew had been killed using various toxic chemicals...?! :rolleyes:

Would you eat a lamb that you knew had been killed using various toxic chemicals...?! :rolleyes:


So you have been shopping at my local supermarket too!! :hmm:

I think I heard that the practice of irradiating stuff like onions is catching on. Keeps them looking fresher for weeks longer apparently. Of course, European sheep are already naturally-irradiated thanks to Chernobyl.

ExSimGuy, what if you found Mr. Gecko a Mrs. Gecko? That might be a more natural way (and perhaps more fun for Mr. Gecko) to expand your counter-offensive measures ;)

Now that's a nice romantic thought - but before I go off hunting above the 3rd tee on the golf course (nice rocky area with lots of geckos) how can I tell that I need a Mr or a Mrs - I'd hate to have to gay geckos in the house - ruin my image!

Make a deal with your gecko - don't crap in my house, and I won't spray your food!
They're cute and unobtrusive, but they definitely have a thing or two to learn about toilet behaviour.

I wouldn't have a clue about how one tells the differece between boy and girl geckoes - it never seemed very important until now... :D

Amazingly, there are at least 40 or 50 types of common geckoes. Feel free to consult the Global Gecko Association (http://www.gekkota.com/index.html) at your leisure :ok:

http://www.thegeckospot.com/

Buck (the male) licks his lips to test the air after detecting Spooks' (the female) scent:

http://www.thegeckospot.com/mating.jpg

"Licks his lips"...that's pretty much like normal human male behaviour too - when presented with an alluring female (of his own species one hastens to add! :O

The Baygon will probably knock the geckos health for a six if it gets a good dose, the fumes from that stuff are not too good for your health either.

I have the small Asian geckos around the house (non native to this part of the world). The kids witnessed a golden orb weaver spider on our verandah munching on one of the geckos this week.

I have decided to keep the spider :E She is 16 cm in length, including the legs. The shrivelled remnants of le gecko was dropped to the ground minutes later after the pic was taken.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~thesme/mypic136.jpg

From the web site posted by G-CPTN

Male or female?
Geckos are sold as temperature-sexed, the sex therefore is not guaranteed (unless stated). :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

The temperature at which the eggs are incubated determines the sex of the hatchling(s).

gecko eggs are temperature sex dependent. This means that the sex of the gecko is not determined at fertilization, but is set during the first two weeks in captivity by the high daytime temperature you expose the eggs to. A daytime high that does not exceed 82 F will give you all female offspring, but if you want to make that egg a "male" then you simply place the egg where it will experience 90-92 F as a daytime high during the first two weeks of incubation. (the following line was revised 07-22-03) If you keep "male" eggs at a constant 89-91 F you may have some embryos die from heat stress or if they are exposed to temps over 92 F they may become what we call "hot" or high temperature females, which never reproduce and often bully their cage mates.

Oh please don't let FlyBlue see that pic............. :\

DON'T LOOK ETHEL!

G-CPTN

Thanks for the info on sexing grecos, another piece of useless info to
file away :ok:

I think I can hear FlyBlue's screams from here :ouch:

Someone call?

airship, I'm very glad we don't get geckos like the one in your picture there at our house - our ones are the little, transparent-looking, ghostly cute ones that run around your walls and ceiling, now and then coming out with a funny little clucking call.
On the down side, geckos being related to birds and all, if distantly, your house starts to look like a flock of pigeons came in and crapped everywhere if you get a bit lazy with the vacuuming!

If one gecko eats the other, you've got it wrong.

The toxic spray is definitely a health hazard for the gecko and for yourself.

Just leave him in my shed. there is enough wildlife in there to keep a 'herd' of geckos going for years.

Well in fact maybe a red fox or two as well if the mice keep breeding.

:ok:

:hmm:

Lizards and snakes can be quite seriously harmed by the propellant in aerosols so it's not a good idea to spray anything anywhere near the little chap.
They eat a lot of tiny bugs that, unlike Prescott, are nearly invisible to the naked eye so just because you cannot see what he is eating does not mean he is not amply provided for.
We always suffocate the mice before we feed them to the snakes as this ensures that the food is completely uncontaminated. Not too good an idea to feed the geko meat covered in poison sauce.;)

Not too good an idea to feed the geko meat covered in poison sauceKill them any way you like! While I'm happy to have them round the car-port lights, anything that keeps the filthy little b*stards out of the house is good - especially 16 cm spiders... :ok:

:}
A prime candidate for a nocturnal visit by my little pet T Rex then ?

In Singapore we had geckos in the bathroom ceiling and behind a big bookcase. They're called 'chat chats' because of the rather nice noise they make.

I liked 'em. We had no problems with insects and their crap was hard (largely exo-skeletal I guess) and easy to clean up.

You've never had one crap in your Talisker, obviously! :(

Indeed Mr Blacksheep! Bathroom poo was easy to clean up, one simply turned he shower on.

Bookcase poo was a dustpan and brush jobby (sic).

Are Borneo geckos Talisker crappers then? :eek:

:cool:

The ones in Seychelles are very well behaved. Probably pooless in Praslin?:D

When one's cats were younger (instead of keeping the vet in the manner to which he's become accustomed), one was sometimes distracted by one or other of the pudicats uttering unusually guttural cries...

Upon closer inspection, it often transpired that the reason behind it all was a tail-less gecko playing dead whilst the tail itself continued to squirm about the floor a little distance away. Gently picking up the unfortunate lizard, one would tease the pudicats a little bit whilst admonishing them for their disrespect of other creatures much smaller than they. Cradling the "dead" thing in the palm of one's hand, trusting that one's body heat would in some way soothe the poor thing's recent misfortune, one actually believes seeing the wildly beating heart (or is it pulse?) slow perceptibly. One would then make one's way out onto the balcony and deposit same on a flat part high up on the wall, well out of the reach of any pudicat. :(

9 times out of 10, the dead gecko would no longer be there when I checked again after a 1/2 hour... :ok:

I know everyone was waiting with breath bated for the next gecko/fly report from me :oh:

Got one of those 6,000-volt ultra-violent thingies ($13, made in China) and installed in the house. The safety grille is fine enough that the Geckos can't get where they shouldn't.

After an hour, during which I heard that "pfft" noise several times there were dead flies in the bottom of the machine - I checked again a little later and there were none. Looking closer my gecko friend scuttled away from behind it!

Obviously prefers not to have to try to catch the flies, and appreciates them being cooked first!:E

Gecko's were my home pets in LOS*

*LOS (Land of Smiles=Thailand, copyright Bernard Trink)

Oh Cap'n!

TIT as Mr. Trink would say.....:ok:

angels, I don't give a hoot... ;)

My problem is that he's (or maybe she's) not 100% efficacious and I have to lend a hand with Bayer's Baygon for the ants etc, and a can of Raid fron the flying pests, and I'm concerend about the health dangers to my Gecko.

Why would one care if a Gecko that is not a 100% efficacious insect killing machine dies from the health dangers associated with the use of certain pesticides necessary to boost its productivity? When the Gecko dies it will provide one the perfect opportunity to acquire a more efficacious Gecko.

http://www.worth1000.com/entries/17500/17573_w.jpg

This will sure hurt your gecko :E

To answer the question yes it could. Most toxins used to kill pests are not broken down completely by the animal that has ingested it initially, so if along comes another predator and consumes said animal the secondary poisoning can take place. Common place in rats that have been poisoned and a cat eats them.. Nothing absolutely nothing can be done, unless you can make the animal vomit and throw up the said culprit.

Sometimes if it has not been too long in the second animals tract then antidotes can work, but to be honest I have never seen a poison case come out alive unless it is caught within the first hour or so.

That is why in the wild animals that hunt will not touch carrion that is dead, except for vultures/birds, most animals will only eat a kill if they have seen it be killed or have killed it. That is also true to animals that vomit after eating something poisoned then will not touch it again due to natural instincts.

So better to let your little gecko do his bit and have some of those hanging zappers for any he misses that get electrocuted. As for ants then use a flame thrower

TnT

Take 1 Gecko and place in approx 1/2 glass of black sambuca.

Light the Sambuca and skull swallowing Gecko.

Do not hesitate as Gecko and glass get very hot causing lips to fuse to glass.

Enjoy!

Baygon doesnt affect Darwhine sand geckos

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y150/tinpis/darwin_crocodile_farm.jpg

No worries, but I'd think twice about walking into a room where one of 'em was going walkabout on the ceiling. :}

Just spent eighty bucks getting the TV fixed. The workshop found the remains of a chit-chat strapped across some transformer connections. :ugh:
Just like the time I had to fish one out Lina's steam iron. And the connections on the water boiler. And out of the goldfish tank. Damned nuisances, so they are!

Still, they were here long before we were and they'll still be here long after we're gone...

Blacksheep do you get them big buggas they call doc-ecks (sound they make)
They gorrem in Bali and the buggas drop in yer dinner.

We have big 'uns (six inchers) and little 'uns (three inchers) in black, green or yellow. Some of them go "chack-chack-chack", some go "chit-chit-chit". All of them go sh*t-sh*t-sh*t. Dirty little devils they are. Cannibals too - I once observed a black six-incher swallow a yellow three incher whole!

One once dropped in my Talisker. I made it drink the lot, then fed it to the dog. I could have fed it to Alice but a drunken six inch spider isn't something you want around the house. :uhoh:

I was visiting a fellow pilot in Gboko, Nigeria once when he mentioned his gecko problem...

As a typical pilot he drank coffee by the gallon, so that he had one of those industrial-size cylindrical percolaters in his dining room. He said the only thing was that every so often one of the geckos would crap in it from high overhead as it was making a transit of the ceiling, which lent the coffee a powerful laxative quality.

He was a pretty nice guy, so that he used to just curse them and leave it at that. Or perhaps he was just getting too old and slow to do anything more about it. What would you do if you were a confirmed gecko-hater anyway?

The ones we had in Nigeria were small and semi-transparent. You could see the heart beating through the skin. They liked to conceal themselves behind skirting boards and every so often you would open the medicine cabinet to get out the razor and be startled by a startled gecko going flailing out of there and across the tile floor with whatever grip it could find.

Then the other major domestic reptiles were those crazy lizards. The males had an orange head and a darkish body, while the females were mottled dark green. You would be sat there nursing a Gulder when a male lizard would come flailing out of the surrounding gloom to have sudden, violent and uninvited sex with whatever females happened to be out there on the patio and then just as suddenly go hooning off into the outer darkness from whence he came. It is that, in part, which I blame for the prevailing low moral climate in that clime. Well, that or all those helicopter pilots we had!