Leopard gecko question

lostinfantasy · 13th April 2009, 07:04 PM

My 8 month leopard gecko has eaten fine since i got her about 2 months ago. She'd always eaten about 5-10 mealworms and 2-3 brown crickets a day.

But since her last shed (which was 5 days ago)....she's stopped eating.

I always used to feed her the crickets with tweezers because she found it hard to catch them when she was smaller. And she has mealworms in a dish available 24/7.

Today, i let 4 crickets loose in her RUB to see what she would do, you know try a different approach. She ate one straight away! And so far the others are still running around.

I'm worried about her, she's only lost 2g since her last weigh (i weigh her every friday to monitor her weight gain). I know it's not exactly a drastic loss, but i know in the long term it could be real bad. I put calcium on my finger and let her lick it off so she's at least getting a little each day.

Is it normal for leos to go off their food like this? Has she maybe got bored with the food i am offering her? Is there anything more i can do to encourage her to eat like she used to?

Has anyone got any suggestions at all? x

Grakky · 13th April 2009, 09:30 PM

I find leos tend to do this every so often, especially when they are a little younger. Just for a week or so they will go off food, usually food altogether (unless a waxie is offered lol). It should be fine just for now, but if you're really worried you could try locusts, I think most get bored of crickets after a while tbh.

rizz · 13th April 2009, 09:33 PM

mine done this for a while.
try giving her some locusts instead of crixs, i gave up on giving mine crix coz she took ages to get them or is just to lazy to even try to lol!

Filardimarg2 · 14th April 2009, 11:31 AM

One of mine did this, he has always eaten mealworms but didn't eat for about 5 or 6 days, so i got some wax worms, gave him 1 then some mealworms & he's back eating again, but i think he didn't like the size of mealworms, they had grown big & so i got some mini ones, he loves them & ate about 15 last night.

lostinfantasy · 14th April 2009, 02:16 PM

Thanks for the advice all, if she does not go back to eating the way she should soon i will definately try locusts, i'll also stop buying crickets if she does not like them anymore noisy things!

Thanks again x

Babycakes · 14th April 2009, 03:37 PM

You could put a wee dish of calcium powder in the rub with her. I use the lid from a 2-litre carton of milk.

lostinfantasy · 15th April 2009, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Babycakes

You could put a wee dish of calcium powder in the rub with her. I use the lid from a 2-litre carton of milk.

she already has some in there for her to take when she wants to, but thank you for the advice anyway! :) x

amyloveyss · 15th April 2009, 06:58 PM

does she have a fat tail ? quite often whilst small mine stop eating as much when their tales are very large, she will have enough fat stores so dont worry !

lostinfantasy · 15th April 2009, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amyloveyss

does she have a fat tail ? quite often whilst small mine stop eating as much when their tales are very large, she will have enough fat stores so dont worry !

Have a look..

She's actually slightly bigger than in these pictures, because these were took few weeks ago.

Do you think i should just leave her to start eating on her own then? x

loopey8 · 16th April 2009, 06:18 PM

I think this might be slightly normal because of the shed. Although not eating for a long time isn't normal. Try force feeding if she doesn't want to eat much. And if she neglects most type of food I hear you can give baby food (JUST for a little while).