Lazy Eye

[Lizard-lover121]

My lizard's, a swift, and hes SO COOL, anyway, his right eye is always half shut and never completly open like his other eye is this natural? hes had it since i caught him.

Thanx
:P

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[TheOtherAndy]

No, its certainly not natural. My best guess without seeing it is that it got injured when you caught it. There are tons of healthy, affordable, well adjusted captive bred lizards out there. Things like this are a great reason to get one instead of catching one in the yard. I'd definitely take a trip to the vet or a qualified wildlife rehabber.

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[NicoleRussell]

wow I totally agree. I'm not much into the whole wild caught thing at all.

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[JuliusSqueezer]

Captive populations all had to start from wild caught animals. There is a time and place for everything. Perhaps this isn't the best example though. Chances are a fence swift had a sporting chance where ever he was found for a full term life and lots of breeding. I have no idea what the lizard population there is like so or what the predation ratio may be or dozens of other factors..It may have made anywhere from no difference at all to a lot of difference in the breeding stock situation and future generations...but probably not. They are fairly prolific throughout their ranges. My justification, right or wrong (makes me feel better anyway) for taking animals from the wild USUALLY has to do with picking them off the roads where I'm fairly certain the next car coming along would have reduced it to a roadfritter anyway. Or venomous snakes plucked out of residential areas with no nearby safe release spots. While I can't with a clear conscience condone taking animals from the wild where they are safe and contributing to the ecology, I admit that I've done it on occasion too so to fiercly shun such a practice would be nothing short of hypocrisy. On the upside, there are a lot of animals in your native regions that are not going to be available in the pet trade in your area so by collecting them from time to time, you are given a chance to study them and learn things about them and can in turn teach others. In many cases where they are not endangered or threatened, it's a very small sacrifice considering the upside of being able to allow nonherpers to get a closer look in a controled environment and help them overcome their ignorance and fear of these animals. It's really hard to get people to stop killing copperheads but on occasion you can talk someone out of it but by keeping say...a native watersnake, you can teach people how to ID them and at least save a few watersnakes from misidentification/slaughter. Most of what is known by any given species came from people like us taking notes on our captives. I can tell you a lot of things about many of the reptiles native to Georgia that you will never read in any book and I think this sort of thing is plenty enough valuable to overlook the downside of removing a few animals from the local eco system.

Anyway...sorry for the lengthy rant. If you are going to keep this lizard, you are going to need a good UV bulb. Also, if you are feeding crickets right out of the box, you may as well be feeding potato chips. You have to gutload the crickets and dust them with a calcium poweder or they are fairly depleted of anything useful. The eye problem could be caused by the lack of one, all or any combination of several things or indeed could be an injury. I doubt a vet trip would be fruitful but you may luck up and find a vet that knows these things. It's not something they ever learned in vet school though. Finding a true herp vet that knows his/her way around herps is a rare find. Many claim to be but very few even meet minimal standards and many cause way more harm than good with their off the top of the head treatments. Usually, in my experience, I have found that a good herp vet is most often a good herp vet because and only because one of his/her vet techs happens to be a hardcore herper and said vet is willing to rely on said tech for help with these animals ..and then of course take all the credit So...call around to a lot of different places and don't be afraid to offend a vet by asking about how experienced they are with herps. If you tell them you have a fence swift, and they ask if his wings are clipped, hang up and call another vet. There are some eyedrops marketed for turtles with vitamin A defenciency though that might or might not help. It wouldn't hurt to try if nothing else helps. You can get it at petco or any of the large pet chains and probably a good many of the small petstores as well.

[TheOtherAndy]

Originally Posted by JuliusSqueezer

Captive populations all had to start from wild caught animals. There is a time and place for everything. Perhaps this isn't the best example though....

I'm sure you're experienced enough to know how to acclimate and minimize stress on a wc native herp. I'm pretty sure this person does not, and there is the key distinction. I think it's great to breed wc herps, and I encourage it all the time. Just taking native species as pets isn't too big of a deal as long as you understand what you're doing. You're right, most of the time the impact is nil (a different story with insular species, but thats another thread). But the well being of the animal is another story when its caught by someone who doesn't know both of it's eyes are supposed to be open (or whatever).

I know this is exactly how most of us got into herpetoculture, but things are different now what with the wealth of information out there and the abundance of cb babies that results from it. It's kind of a waste if we don't use that progress and encourage to people get off on the right foot. The days where most people gained experience by having a bunch of wc animals die on them should be long behind us.

Anybody that can breed a snake they grabbed off the road isn't going to get a second look from me, but this is a different story. I see your point, but yeah, this is a really bad example.

[JuliusSqueezer]

Well said OtherAndy...what ever happened to the first Andy anyway? hehe..

It's just easy for people to put a blanket shun on catching and keeping any wild animals. I was just trying to point out that there are exceptions or at least a valid argument or two for both sides on at least some occasions.

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