I feel like a horrible human and failure

I love animals and I’d give my money and health for my pets. I got a tarantula and gecko recently, and was given another gecko a while before. I’m trying my absolute best to make sure their temperature and humidity is right. For some ■■■■■■■ stupid ass reason the temperature only drops and doesn’t ■■■■■■■ rise, no matter how many stupid heating lamps I add. I don’t know how to read ■■■■■■■ thermometers I don’t know any of that ■■■■ and I’m worrying myself sick trying to fix everything because my created gecko won’t eat and apparently his temperature was low and I didn’t know, even though I check it multiple times every day. I ■■■■■■■ try. The lady at the reptile store said a heating pad should be fine, and it doesn’t HEAT IT UP IT WONT WORK I can’t trust anyone, this is how my last crestie died. Technically it was sick and dying anyways but I still blame myself for that. I need to make this right and no one will HELP ME MY MOM WONT HELP ME I can’t fix anything I’m a ■■■■■■■ failure I should have never gotten reptiles I never should’ve bought them I’m just a killer I’m neglectful I’m a killer

1 Like

Woah buddy, you’re doing alright
You’re trying your hardest, learn how to read a thermometer on the internet and go back to the pet shop and explain the heat pad won’t work!
You got this

3 Likes

I wish I could believe that but I can’t I mess everything up. It’s my worst fear to be an abusive or neglectful pet owner I don’t want them to suffer I don’t know how to fix it I want to give up and die

The fact that this is affecting you so deeply to me shows that you are definitely not neglectful, look how much you care about these animals, it’s so clear to see! Honestly just go back to the pet shop and explain the situation and reach out for advice.
Is there a forum for geckos that you could reach out to other owners for advice?
I know a user on here @cbbrown has reptiles, you could speak to her :slight_smile:

4 Likes

Is there a reptile club in your area @SupercoolTM? Can you post on a Facebook reptile group in order to get help?

Yes, please take the heating pad back to the pet shop.

7 Likes

I can try. I’ll do that today if I can

2 Likes

There’s a logical solution to the heating problem. It’s not magic, millions of people keep pets like yours successfully. The problems you’re having with the heat are mechanical problems just like working on and fixing cars. There’s a solution, you just have to methodically go through every step there is to finding exactly what’s wrong.

Start from the beginning and go through each step to setting up a tank or cage or whatever and find where you went wrong. Search online and do some reading on the equipment you have or need. There is a solution to this,. when you initially set up your apparatus you may have overlooked something or missed some detail or something or accidentally skipped a step or done something wrong. Good luck.

3 Likes

@SupercoolTM - Awesome! I really hope you can get this resolved today. Pls keep us posted, if you like.

1 Like

in this situation your motivation is to help the gecko and that’s the only thing that matters as far as your character goes. Your intentions trump ideas of failure.

1 Like

Wait. One problem at a time.

  1. you:“I dont know how to read thermomiters”

Fix that FIRST. Ask people other than, mom, to help you. maybe even google it. Also, do you wear glasses? thermomiters have tiny lines. are you sure you can see them?

  1. make sue you have the right type of enviroment for your breed of reptile. some lizards live in the dessert (dry)while others live in the jungle(wet).

  2. you:" many lamps" …“wont heat up”

Either your lamps are not heat lamps or your thermomitor is broken (or as said before, your not able to read it)

heat lamps take about 30 minutes to an hour to heat a surface. Have you physically put your hand in there and felt the ground or glass? to see how warm it is or isnt?
you may also verify the temperature range your breed of reptile likes.

Is there a fan running in the room? turn it off. keep it s enclosure away from the blast of air vents from heating and ac.

Last but not least, does the plug fit well into the socket? i have had loose sockets repeatedly turn a light off and on.

My last bit of advice to you is to find, join, and ask a reptile website what you can do. or if you are making any mistakes. Theres a million of them out there.

If it is a jungle type enclosure try " vivarium reptile help" into your search. Actually, there may even be dessert vivariums too, but i dont know for certain.

I keep terrariums which is basically a vivarium. nothing fancy. It took me a while to learn this too as they can also develope problems.(but no animals inside)

i would love a frog that stays tiny.

i hope some of this helps.

2 Likes

Maybe your apartment or home isn’t warm enough. Hope this doesn’t make you mad.

1 Like

That helps, thank you! We added a in-room heater and it’s all good now. The lamps do work, I touch them constantly. One is a desert lizard but the one I worry about is my crestie who is tropical/arboreal. I figured out the issue and right now his heating pad is off because the temp. is close to 80% which isn’t good, so now it’s a nice temp, of 70%+. My tarantula is good too now that the heater is on. It’s good now, I just worry though.

My new anxiety now is my ferrets. I was in the hospital yesterday and was doing prep that made my physically ill for a few days. I didn’t pay attention to my ferret very closely because of how out of it I was. My boy ferret has some really bad diarrhea and we’re not sure why. He gets stressed easily but it looks bad to me, so we’re going to take him to the vet. It’s with all of my pets being sick and bad things happening that makes it feel like it was my fault, even though my mom tells me I couldn’t have helped any of this.

2 Likes

very welcome! Glad all is well. see you around the forum.
Best wishes for your ferret.

1 Like

So did my idea help?

1 Like

Yes! Thank you very much :smiley:

So you are saying that your situation is much better now. That’s great… like a weight off your chest

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.