Symptoms:
- Grayish or faded color
- Reduced appetite
- Reduced activity
Cause:
When geckos gain or lose weight, they shed their skin in order to accommodate the change — similar to how humans need different-sized clothes after a growth spurt or after losing weight. Leaf-tailed gecko shedding is perfectly normal and no cause for concern unless the shed isn’t coming off.
Treatment:
Increase humidity to 80-100% until shedding is complete. Uroplatus eat their shed, so don’t expect to see it laying around in the morning. This is an evolutionary adaptation for recycling valuable nutrients that would otherwise be wasted.
If your gecko is having trouble shedding, maintain humidity at high levels and wait 24-hours. If there are still pieces of shed clinging to the gecko’s body after that, mist again and pick off the remainder with thin tip tweezers.
You can also place the gecko in a homemade humidity chamber: Using an appropriately-sized Tupperware, poke holes in the plastic for ventilation and add a lukewarm wet paper towel. Place the gecko inside and close the lid. Let it be for 20-30 minutes. If the shed hasn’t come off by itself by then, pick off with tweezers GENTLY.
Whatever you do, don’t yank off the stuck shed — this can severely injure your gecko.