I was extremely upset last night.

[Crackity Jones]

I was making my rounds with feeding the leo hatchlings last night on the rack.
Anyone here who might have a rack system for their leos KNOWS how routine it is. You fill dishes, go from box to box and place dishes in.
Hatchlings usually aren't ones for being very social, so the process is quick.

I made it down to hatchling #7 last night. I had made it through 6 already.
I opened up his box, noticed he was the only one who didn't run out of his hide like a mad man, so I placed his dish into his box. I went to clue him in that I had put food in his box, by checking his humid hide.

NO hatchling.

I lift up the paper towel.

NO hatchling.

So, thinking I must STILL be over looking things, I run upstairs with the box and tell my husband that he'd better find a hatchling in there or he lost one.
I said this because he cleaned cages the night before.

We start searching downstairs. We are looking in every nook and cranny we can find.

NO hatchling.

I was sick to my stomach. This was one of my favorite hatchlings because he not only was one of the only ones NOT to hiss at me, but he was just a real sweet gecko.
He only hatched a week ago, so he only weighs 4 grams or so.

Anyway, I tell my husband (after searching for a long time) that we should leave out a dish of food for it. So, he takes one of the small gladware containers that we use to weigh them in (which are too tall for them to climb out of), uses a long lid of sorts as a ramp, and he places mealies in this container.

I did not have high hopes that we'd ever see that baby again. I knew he couldn't have climbed the stairs to get upstairs, so I knew he had to be downstairs. But I had done laundry yesterday, and was picking clothes up off the floor very fast to put them in the machine.
So, I kept having horrifying thoughts about how I probably accidentally grabbed him up in a pile of clothes. I was so upset.


My husband woke up this morning.
The little stinker was in the gladware container.
He was caught.


This is one hatchling that I'm going to keep.


We're pretty sure that he MUST HAVE escaped out of one of the air holes that my husband drilled. It was a tad bigger than the other holes on the other cages.
It's the ONLY WAY he could have gotten out.
I thought for sure my husband must've forgotten to put him back in his cage after cleaning them the night before, but after he cleaned the cages, he gave them a roach nymph a piece in a bowl.
When I removed that dish and replaced it with a dish of mealies yesterday, the roach was gone. So he had to have eaten it which means my husband had to have put him back into his cage.
AND there was poop in his cage.
SO! The stinker ate, pooped, and then bolted.

We fixed the problem with the holes, and hopefully no more escapees.

I'M SO HAPPY HE HAS BEEN FOUND!

But I was devastated last night. I really was. I was crying and searching, and I was just real down.

We've named him Houdini. He's the first hatchling of ours to be named.
Well, he EARNED it.

I snapped a shot of what we used to catch the little bugger.
Here's "Houdini's Trap" minus the mealies:



And here is Houdini himself. The white stuff on his head?
I thought it was dry skin, so I zoomed in on the pic in GIMP, not only did I realize that it's not dry skin, it's cob webs, but he's got cob webs hanging from his mouth!
He survived his escape and returned without a scratch on him.

[Chicubswally]

What a wonderful story. Thank you for sharing. I love the new name as well. This leo will turn out to be a nice one!

[Crackity Jones]

And this is what I found in the incubator this afternoon.
I've not been fortunate enough to catch one coming out of its egg until today.

[dcarter]

Congrats on finding him safe and sound

[lkraus]

that little escapee is very naughty! he is a smart guy knowing to come back at that very young age. better keep an eye on him. if he was a human, you would have real trouble as he got older!

[Debbie]

Glad you found him back!

[malibugecko]

I lost a 1 month old baby 2 weeks ago - I have torn the room apart - NOTHING

Im so gald you found the little bugger

[Crackity Jones]

You should try a trap similar to ours.
Maybe s/he will come out and you'll catch him/her?

Our LAST egg hatched last night.
We got to unplug the incubator for the first time since April!