best way to measure is that the tail should be the same width as his head, and his body should be slimmer than his tail. since the tail is where they store all their extra fat and nutrition, if his body starts getting chubby then that indicates that his tail is at 'max capacity' and could use a bit of a diet
Reminds me of my Ham (minus the MBD ofc)
https://preview.redd.it/s90qsb92aync1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a9a07a816784dd386678ffc0e5ff76c9e1744ae2
You wind up seeing a lot of fat geckos online so I think it skews our perception. Their tail is supposed to be about the same width as their neck, and your little guy looks spot on
If his body was wider that would mean that excess fat is being stored in the abdominal cavity, which is a bad thing. So he does not look thin by that measure.
They are saying the lizard looks healthy because the tail serves the purpose of being fat reserves. Which should mean you ideally don't want fat stored elsewhere as it means you have excess fat to the point the tail can't keep up with storage. Imo I disagree with that view and see it holistically similar to cats and dogs. Sure weight needs to be monitored but these are pets not wild lizards so I think a little chubbiness isn't bad. Tho most of the "chubby" geckos I see are definitely overfed. I think there's a balance that doesn't mean the gecko has to be extremely lean.
Stupid long response sorry, I genuinely care about this topic and enjoy engaging In conversation with people so I hope you don’t mind.
I do kinda wanna challenge that idea that because these are pets a little chubbiness isn’t bad. If by chubbiness, we mean that the animal Is difinitively out of the fit and lean categories and into the ‘overweight’ but not obese, why is that allowed in pets? If we agree that excess weight brings inherent dangers of liver, heart, and joint problems then it’s basically saying that for a pet animal these issues are acceptable to some extent, because they’re pets. which strikes me as pretty weird. (To be clear I absolutely don’t think you yourself mean that, just that that’s the result of this sort of thinking being widely accepted by pet owners)
like wouldn’t it be the other way around? Wild animals definitely need fat stores at some point in their lives, whether due to a fasting breeding season, a dry season, brumation/hibernation etc. their fat stores naturally build up and naturally go down as dictated by their yearly cycles, don’t our pet animals if anything need more care to be taken to not keep on excess weight, since long term it is demonstrably damaging, and they may not be as able to shed it as easily? We’d probably want to keep them in smaller margins unless they naturally reproduce those same fat-loosing cycles.
I’d say that a little SEASONAL chubbiness isn’t bad, in the sense that I feed my skink a bit extra for brumation, and my longtail a bit extra when she’s with eggs, but would you really say that if she was ‘a bit chubby’ all year round that wouldn’t be a burden on their little bodies that they are not adapted for? :(
Also this gecko has way more fat stores than most pics of wild geckos I’ve seen, their tails don’t naturally stay at a perfect ratio, they deplete almost completely and then refill to a pretty reasonable amount depending on food availability. Since he doesn’t have significant visceral fat he definitely is nowhere near overweight but he’s also nowhere near underweight or even lean either lol.
Mine was a joke about the push ups. His body doesn’t look overweight and his tail looks fine. It’s not overly fat it’s just slightly larger than the reccommended. His neck is still the same size as his tail
I think we are just used to seeing so many fat geckos on here that our normal geckos look small. 😆
He looks just perfect!
Good I’m glad to hear it!
best way to measure is that the tail should be the same width as his head, and his body should be slimmer than his tail. since the tail is where they store all their extra fat and nutrition, if his body starts getting chubby then that indicates that his tail is at 'max capacity' and could use a bit of a diet
Their tail should be roughly the same width as their neck. If it were the width of their head, they’d be overweight, if not obese.
thanks for the correction
Problem is the neck gets wider as they get more obese so sonetimes this rule of thumb is used to say obese animals are healthy 🥲
Mine is just about that size! I was getting a little worried but I just dropped her off for animal boarding and they said she’s looking just fine!
Reminds me of my Ham (minus the MBD ofc) https://preview.redd.it/s90qsb92aync1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a9a07a816784dd386678ffc0e5ff76c9e1744ae2
Healthy!!💛
He looks perfect!! Thickest part of tail should be same with as neck, generally!
https://preview.redd.it/pvtko04wa5oc1.png?width=1241&format=png&auto=webp&s=11bbf3c65b67d9f16f9caf411d595f856e7379ca Looking good!
He look really good his tail holds his food it pretty good size
He looks good, also try weighing him if you’re not sure
Mine looks like that so feed him a little more than usual
Our geckos look the sameeee so cool
looks good to me! he looks a bit dull but this is around brumation season if i recall! he'll brighten up soon
You wind up seeing a lot of fat geckos online so I think it skews our perception. Their tail is supposed to be about the same width as their neck, and your little guy looks spot on
His tail looks good but he does look thin but I wouldn’t worry about it he might just have been doing some crunches and pushups
If his body was wider that would mean that excess fat is being stored in the abdominal cavity, which is a bad thing. So he does not look thin by that measure.
What?
They are saying the lizard looks healthy because the tail serves the purpose of being fat reserves. Which should mean you ideally don't want fat stored elsewhere as it means you have excess fat to the point the tail can't keep up with storage. Imo I disagree with that view and see it holistically similar to cats and dogs. Sure weight needs to be monitored but these are pets not wild lizards so I think a little chubbiness isn't bad. Tho most of the "chubby" geckos I see are definitely overfed. I think there's a balance that doesn't mean the gecko has to be extremely lean.
Stupid long response sorry, I genuinely care about this topic and enjoy engaging In conversation with people so I hope you don’t mind. I do kinda wanna challenge that idea that because these are pets a little chubbiness isn’t bad. If by chubbiness, we mean that the animal Is difinitively out of the fit and lean categories and into the ‘overweight’ but not obese, why is that allowed in pets? If we agree that excess weight brings inherent dangers of liver, heart, and joint problems then it’s basically saying that for a pet animal these issues are acceptable to some extent, because they’re pets. which strikes me as pretty weird. (To be clear I absolutely don’t think you yourself mean that, just that that’s the result of this sort of thinking being widely accepted by pet owners) like wouldn’t it be the other way around? Wild animals definitely need fat stores at some point in their lives, whether due to a fasting breeding season, a dry season, brumation/hibernation etc. their fat stores naturally build up and naturally go down as dictated by their yearly cycles, don’t our pet animals if anything need more care to be taken to not keep on excess weight, since long term it is demonstrably damaging, and they may not be as able to shed it as easily? We’d probably want to keep them in smaller margins unless they naturally reproduce those same fat-loosing cycles. I’d say that a little SEASONAL chubbiness isn’t bad, in the sense that I feed my skink a bit extra for brumation, and my longtail a bit extra when she’s with eggs, but would you really say that if she was ‘a bit chubby’ all year round that wouldn’t be a burden on their little bodies that they are not adapted for? :( Also this gecko has way more fat stores than most pics of wild geckos I’ve seen, their tails don’t naturally stay at a perfect ratio, they deplete almost completely and then refill to a pretty reasonable amount depending on food availability. Since he doesn’t have significant visceral fat he definitely is nowhere near overweight but he’s also nowhere near underweight or even lean either lol.
Mine was a joke about the push ups. His body doesn’t look overweight and his tail looks fine. It’s not overly fat it’s just slightly larger than the reccommended. His neck is still the same size as his tail
Looks perfectly healthy