Sad News :-(

This household has always been one for waifs, strays and weird and wacky pets... and this evening I have sad news to report. "B" the leopard gecko has sadly passed away. Hub and I had B for longer than we've had the children, so it actually is a sad thing even though he was only "a silly creature."

I'm sad that there aren't actually pictures of B, but this is what he looked like. I should definitely take more photos of the animals in this house.

What makes it worse is that B was ATTACKED BY THE CRICKETS that were in there for him to eat!! He fed on live food .... the crickets were his FOOD and they ended up attacking him. I was just sat here this evening doing some stuff on my laptop when hub called me over and said that the crickets were literally eating him alive. I thought he was joking until I saw it myself. There was a massive (well it was massive compared to the size of HIM) hole in his body and you could see 3 of his ribs and his innards. There were also a couple of other smaller holes and we just knew damned well that he was never going to survive.

The only thing I can think is that where he'd got older, his skin had got more frail - perhaps he already had a small nick or wound that attracted them - and maybe that was it. It was shocking - truly shocking to see.

The only thing to do was to take him to the emergency out of hours vet and have him put to sleep. It was a £70 consult and £15 to put him to sleep and selfishly I was thinking of the cost rather than the creature, but it was the right thing to do to take him down. Thankfully they waived the consultation fee anyway as he was literally taken there just to be put to sleep.

He was only a tiny little creature, but he'd been part of the household for longer than the kids!!

So yeah I'm pretty sad