Banded Gecko Care??

[Damieboo]

Hello, all! Well, tonight I almost ran over a poor baby Western Banded Gecko. Saw a lizard wandering around on the road with its eyes closed. It seemed tired and confused so my husband picked it up and it laid in his hands. We set it up in a 20 gallon tank with sand from outside (same stuff we found him near) and a big rock with a moist underside for it to hide under, which it's doing right now. Also have a shallow water dish and a food dish with chopped mealworms because we only have giants and it's verrrrrry small, so I think it's still a baby. It seems healthy as far as I can tell, it tried to climb the glass but gave up and was interested in a live mealworm but wouldn't eat it. It seems really underfed and skinny but I can't really say since I don't know much about geckos...

We're going to a pet store tomorrow to see if we can find small mealworms to feed it. I don't have a heat source for it at the moment but I'm keeping it in a dark corner of our kitchen, which is usually about 75-80 degrees at night and 85 during the day.

 

[Damieboo]

We got some pin-sized crickets and tossed a couple in the tank today, and it did eat one, but won't touch the others. It's somewhat interested in them but not really lunging. I'm not sure if it's weak or just stressed out. It's been hiding under the rock I put in the tank (I dug out a little hole in the sand under the rock) but it pokes its head out occasionally. We misted the tank and it licked up some water. I'm not really sure what else to do for it. Does it need a heating pad? Our kitchen rarely falls below 80 degrees (75 on cool days) and it feels somewhat humid in there, which I assume is from the fridge and sink (very small kitchen).

The strange thing is it's not very scared of us. I can pick it up and it'll sit in my hands and it'll lick my finger as opposed to running away. I'm half convinced it's either someone's pet or a captive bred gecko because in my 6 months living here, I've never seen a single banded gecko and our backyard is full of their habitat, creosote bushes. Got plenty of other lizards though like desert iguanas.

 

[Blizz]

Get him a bit bigger crickets, it will take a couple days for him to distress and really start eating. He does need a heat pad, You need to put a white light on him during the day as they are nocturnal and need to know when night really is. They need no UVB, you can put in a red light to see him at night as they don't recognize it so it won't bother him.