Why This Species Rewards a Log
African fat-tailed geckos are nocturnal, ground-dwelling and quietly private: they hunt at night, sleep the day away in a humid hide, and show illness late and subtly. Most of what they do happens while you are asleep, which means your impressions of how much yours eats are probably wrong. A log replaces impression with record — and for a species whose whole condition is written in one place, its tail, the record has a built-in gauge to check against at every entry.
What to Write at Each Feed
Note the day, what was offered — crickets, roaches, worms — how many were taken and how many were left, and whether the food was dusted with calcium or vitamin supplement. Fat-tails can be unhurried, individual feeders: some stalk eagerly, some wait for prey to wander past the hide, and your log is how you learn your own gecko's style. Record appetite honestly, including the refused feeds; a single refusal means nothing, a fortnight of them in the log means something, and you cannot see the fortnight without the entries.
Sheds, Toes and the Tail Gauge
Log each shed: when it happened, whether it completed cleanly, and whether any skin stayed behind on the toes or tail tip — retained shed is this species' recurring nuisance, especially when the humid hide runs dry, and toes are where it does its damage. Alongside, score the tail: plump and rounded, holding, or visibly thinning. The tail is a fat store, and a gecko eating well does not draw on it; a thinning tail next to a run of poor feeds in the log is a clear, early signal, weeks before the gecko itself looks unwell.
Reading the Pattern Over Months
Spread over a season, the log explains the animal: appetite dips that line up with sheds, quieter weeks in the cooler months, the feeders that are always refused and the ones never left. It also disciplines the keeper — supplements dusted on a rotation you can verify, feeds offered on a rhythm the gecko can anticipate. And if you ever sit in front of a vet describing a gecko that has not seemed right lately, the log turns that vagueness into dates, quantities and a tail record a vet can actually work with.
One Record, Kept With the Gecko
A notebook by the vivarium works until it is full, lost or left behind when the gecko travels to a sitter or a vet. KinsLe's Pet Passport keeps your gecko's records together in one portable packet, so its feeding and shedding history — and that all-important tail record — is there whenever anyone needs the full picture.