Designer Geckos
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- Boulder, CO
We get this question often, especially around this time of year when leos are in more of a dormant phase. The experienced leo folks know all this, but here's some info on our method for the newbies out there struggling with a leo that is off food and losing weight.
First off, the usual comments about temperature, good husbandry, etc....I won't address again now, but it is very important of course.
If your gecko is healthy and was eating well but all of a sudden stopped eating....
We are not advocates of force feeding. While it can have its place and can be effective, many cannot master it easily, and it can be very traumatic on the gecko as it struggles in your hand while you try to cram something down its throat. Force feeding can tip the scales dramatically on an already stressed gecko, and you can do far more harm than good if you are not an experienced keeper.
The key is to find out what the gecko might be enticed to eat willingly. All geckos have their preferences, but when off food, they may not even want their favs. Try mealies, medium superworms, nickel-sized dubias (tong-fed)....if those fail, then here's a tried and true magic bullet approach:
Take 4 crickets of appropriate size for your leo, and remove the rear legs and one foreleg with a forceps so as not to injure/kill the crickets. The crickets survive just fine like this, kind of like crabs do. Take the delegged crickets and put them in a small glass petri dish or some sort of clear glass shallow dish so the gecko can see the crickets easily. (We use 60x15mm pyrex petri dishes that are available online.) Place the dish near the warm hide opening and leave it overnight...there's a good chance that after a night or two the leo will eat them. You can also try to tong feed delegged crickets at the opening of the hide, and sometimes the leo will grab them that way.
If crickets fail, try dropping a butterworm (warmed to room temp) at the hide opening. If that fails, the final magic bullet is fresh waxworms dropped at the hide opening. Few leos can resist them. Once you get them eating "treats" for a few days, start to wean them off and get them back on to the staple you had them on previously. You don't want to end up feeding waxies, butters, or crix exclusively.....geckos can get spoiled, especially on waxies, and then you have the problem of getting them off the treats.
What we are trying to do is to stimulate the feeding response and "jumpstart the metabolic process" as Ron Tremper says. When a leo goes a long time without food the stomach shrinks, stomach acid and enzyme production cease, and the gecko can go into a downward spiral of weight loss very quickly.
We want to nip this in the bud ASAP or you can lose a gecko pretty fast as they start to go into shutdown mode and also lose the will to live. Now, in the wild geckos can go for long periods of time without food and water in the dry season. Even in captivity, leos can go for fairly long periods without food. But when they start to drop weight fast and their tail becomes thin, you must act fast or you risk losing your gecko.
Feel free to contact us if you have further questions. Best of luck.
First off, the usual comments about temperature, good husbandry, etc....I won't address again now, but it is very important of course.
If your gecko is healthy and was eating well but all of a sudden stopped eating....
We are not advocates of force feeding. While it can have its place and can be effective, many cannot master it easily, and it can be very traumatic on the gecko as it struggles in your hand while you try to cram something down its throat. Force feeding can tip the scales dramatically on an already stressed gecko, and you can do far more harm than good if you are not an experienced keeper.
The key is to find out what the gecko might be enticed to eat willingly. All geckos have their preferences, but when off food, they may not even want their favs. Try mealies, medium superworms, nickel-sized dubias (tong-fed)....if those fail, then here's a tried and true magic bullet approach:
Take 4 crickets of appropriate size for your leo, and remove the rear legs and one foreleg with a forceps so as not to injure/kill the crickets. The crickets survive just fine like this, kind of like crabs do. Take the delegged crickets and put them in a small glass petri dish or some sort of clear glass shallow dish so the gecko can see the crickets easily. (We use 60x15mm pyrex petri dishes that are available online.) Place the dish near the warm hide opening and leave it overnight...there's a good chance that after a night or two the leo will eat them. You can also try to tong feed delegged crickets at the opening of the hide, and sometimes the leo will grab them that way.
If crickets fail, try dropping a butterworm (warmed to room temp) at the hide opening. If that fails, the final magic bullet is fresh waxworms dropped at the hide opening. Few leos can resist them. Once you get them eating "treats" for a few days, start to wean them off and get them back on to the staple you had them on previously. You don't want to end up feeding waxies, butters, or crix exclusively.....geckos can get spoiled, especially on waxies, and then you have the problem of getting them off the treats.
What we are trying to do is to stimulate the feeding response and "jumpstart the metabolic process" as Ron Tremper says. When a leo goes a long time without food the stomach shrinks, stomach acid and enzyme production cease, and the gecko can go into a downward spiral of weight loss very quickly.
We want to nip this in the bud ASAP or you can lose a gecko pretty fast as they start to go into shutdown mode and also lose the will to live. Now, in the wild geckos can go for long periods of time without food and water in the dry season. Even in captivity, leos can go for fairly long periods without food. But when they start to drop weight fast and their tail becomes thin, you must act fast or you risk losing your gecko.
Feel free to contact us if you have further questions. Best of luck.