Leachianus microchipping 101...

[Sarah Gilpin]

Hey everybody! I've been meaning to post some of the microchipping pictures we took while working on Allen's collection. Here is a little sequence of the microchipping process.

To start our assembly line off we weighed and measured the geckos, entering all known information into the database.



Next came injecting the microchips. Allen or Andrew got the enjoyment of restraining while I inserted the 12 gauge needle underneath the skin. As you can see here we tried to insert the needle right where the ventral side meets the dorsal side, most of the times the needle slid right into the excess skin. The needle was inserted in a cranial to caudal direction in hopes that the gecko would not push the microchip out as it moved around.





Much to my amazement the geckos hardly expressed any form of pain when I inserted the needle. There were only a few that struggled and growled at us when they got poked. There were also only a few of them that bled at all!

After inserting the chip we had to glue the hole left by the needle back together. I brought some surgical glue along from work and it worked great! One drop and a little squeeze and they were good to go.



Finally, we had to scan them and record their number in the database and on their cage card.



We microchipped leachies ranging from 11-400 grams. We also took 4 photos of each gecko and linked the photos of each particular gecko into the database by their chip #. The database is going to be an awesome attribute to the gecko community. It is allowing the geckos to be sold with basically a "pedigree". I really hope that others will be willing to contribute in expanding the database by getting their geckos microchipped.


A big thanks to Allen for starting this project, and for letting us be a part of it, it was an awesome experience!

any guess as to how many leachies you guys microchipped? cant wait for the database to go up!

[Sarah Gilpin]

I cannot remember the exact count, but it took about 4 days to complete it all.

[Jeremy Letkey]

That is a great plan. Is there going to be an online database?
Great post.

eventually there will be an online database

[Peter]

Originally Posted by SsarahH

Much to my amazement the geckos hardly expressed any form of pain when I inserted the needle. There were only a few that struggled and growled at us when they got poked. There were also only a few of them that bled at all!

Comparing the body to needle size it really is amazing. This gecko actually looks very calm considering it's getting stuck with what would be like a person taking a sword stab to the body.

Personally, I would have a grand conniption if I had to got stuck with a needle that size.

[wgusto]

How much does this microchip technology cost? What is the price of the machine used to scan the animals, and is each individual microchip expensive.

Also, is their anyone else participating in this microchipping process besides Allen

Adam

[Allen Repashy]

The actual chip cost is about six bucks, but you also need the needles, so figure an average cost of about 10 bucks for the material..... the readers start at about $450. You can get a starter kit with all the equipment and 100 chips for about a grand.

Right now I have chipped all my breeders. In the next few weeks, we will do all Philippe's animals..... Philippe has told me that Frank Fast will follow suit..... I talked to Steve C about it and he said he was in, but haven't heard from for a few months, so am not sure at this point. I am hoping to get some people in the European community involved in the project also.

Allen

[sal-amanda]

Has it been decided how other people, like myself, will be able to go about chipping out own animals if we would like to?

[xeon452]

Originally Posted by sal-amanda

Has it been decided how other people, like myself, will be able to go about chipping out own animals if we would like to?

yes I would like to know this too. I have one of Philippe's beauties and would love to have a chip to prove his nice bloodline/pedigree, when he starts siring the ladies!