haha your fine valerie, kinda made my heart skip a beat but im good now. they were feeding the leo 5 or 6 mealworms a week...here she gets a few supers as treats and lots of dubias. i breed my own here at home because i have so many babies that love them! when i first got her, she was strickly on supers because they were high in fat. she also got chicken baby food which she loves. she was never handled at the "rescue" so she is very shy. shes only bit once and that was when i first started the baby food. she loves to come out and see rob and i when we walk into the room, but she doesnt like to be held. and remember, that recent picture was taken about a week after she got off feed. shes still bulking up. i honestly didnt think she would ever gain weight like she has. i was told she was overbred before the rescue got her, but now i can chalk it up to neglect.
and i agree with you guys, the place needs to be shut down. only thing is they arent a state recognized rescue. they run it out of their house, and their names are known in the reptile community here in indianapolis. even if i call the board of health on them, they would just issue a citation. rob and i dont go over there anymore, so we cant keep up with if the place is getting better or not.
they used to have another leo (little lilly) who ended up with a bad eye infection (i found her when i cleaned her). they let her moss get so dry and dusty that she had an eye infection along with a cyst between her eye and ear. they got it lanced and put her on eye meds twice daily. when i noticed the rescue wasnt doing the eye meds even once a day, i volunteered to take her. was wiping her eye, medication, and feeding jumpstart to this poor girl twice a day for about a month. they finally took her back (eye infection gone, but severly underweight) and they say shes doing fine, but i dont believe them.
and dont get me started on their snakes! their poor burmese (9 ft) is in a 55gal that never got cleaned unless rob and i were there. they used the cotton like hamster bedding. so the burm would dump her water, and sit in nasty wet bedding for a week. by the time we would get to clean her out, there would be mold growing in the tank. then she ended up with mites, and so did the other snakes. we treated everyone and put them in totes in the garage. a week goes by and rob and i go over to help clean and feed...nothing had been done with the snakes. we pop open the tub their big bur, was in, and there were so many mites, you could have sworn there was black bedding in this tub. same story for the other snakes. so rob and i stayed till around 3 am
bathing the snakes and retreating them. a week later the husband and wife went to flordia for a week and rob and i volunteered to take care of the babies...had to retreat them all for mites...and couldnt feed them because we couldnt risk them ingesting the mites further. but long story short, rob and i got the mites taken care of...then these poor snakes sat another 3 1/2 weeks in tubs in the garage without being fed...so a total of a month and a half in storage totes, covered in mites, and no food. they have a 7 ft anaconda that is smaller around than my wrist. the 9ft burm is about the same size. its heart breaking.
but if you guys have any ideas on shutting this place down, please let me know. i will keep everyone updated with pics. also brought home a new baby last weekend. fire and ice citrus leaterback beardie. named him dexter! hes beautiful!
I hope you'll get him up to weight soon, good luck with the lil' bloke.
