Has she given up on life?

BrightReptiles

Badhabits727
Messages
948
Location
Seminole, FL
About your leo:
- Sex Female
- Age & Weight 2 years, 32g
- How long have you owned your leo
- Where was he/she obtained (ex. Pet store, breeder, wild caught, friend) breeder

A) Health/History
- How often do you handle your leo bi-daily
- Is your leo acting any different today? Over the past few months she has been losing weight rapidly and refusing to eat
- Has he/she had any problems in the past, if so please describe.
B) Fecals
- Describe (look any different than normal) normal
- When was the last time he/she went, yesterday
C) Problem
- Please briefly describe the problem and how long it has been going on
weight loss, not eating

Housing:
A) Enclosure
- Size 16qt tub, paper towels
- Type (ex. glass tank)
- Type of substrate
- Hides, how many, what kind two, dry and moist
B) Heating
- Heat source heat cable on rack
- Cage temps (hot side, cool side) 94F, 80F
- Method of regulating heat source A/C unit in room, layers of tape over cable = ghetto thermostat
- What are you using to measure your temps zoomed digi probe
- Do you have any lights (describe) No.
C) Cage mates
- How many (males, females) 0
- Describe health, or previous problems. Was healthy until bred

Describe Diet:
A) Typical diet
- What you're feeding (how often, how much) Current staple is large mealworms, tried temporary staple with wax worms, silk worms, pinkies. Was eating crickets.
- How are you feeding (hand fed, left in dish, ect) Went from crickets jumping around, to hand feeding crickets, to trying worms, then hand feeding worms, hand feeding pinky, etc. Now wont take food at all.
B) Supplements (describe how often)
- What vitamin/minerals are you using (list brands) Zoo Med Calcium +D3, Reptivite
- What are you gut loading food with Potatoes and wheat bran.



She was a healthy happy leo when we got her, about a year old and roughly 50 grams in the beginning. She was bred to our hypo, and went on a laying spree and things fell apart from there. She was literally laying two eggs bi-weekly. She would not eat a week before laying, so was basically on a week off a week from food. She started losing weight after her first lay. (Eggs were always fertile, none were kept). She stopped laying over a month ago, and now will not eat anything at all, and we have tried everything. She has dropped to 32 grams. She is not the least bit lethargic, but refuses to eat (though apparently she is sneaking a worm here or there because she is pooping regularly, but she isn't eating more than a single worm every 3-4 days). The hand feeding started because she seemed to have a hard time hunting from the beginning. She would lunge at them, but only go about half way and never actually catch anything, no matter how close to her it was. We'd have to take it in the tongs and rub it on her jaw for her to be able to strike at it efficiently. Now she doesn't even make the effort. This is our pet, and will never be bred again, and we don't want to lose her. We have tried raising her temp a bit on the warm side as this has helped us with other geckos going on feeding strikes in the past, no luck with her. Any advice is appreciated.

IMAG0137.jpg
 

gecko4245

New Member
Messages
428
Also, she shows no signs of calcium deficiency. Her limbs are strait and she raises up and moves around like she is perfectly fine. Obviously she isn't.

It could be stress related from handling believe or not. Stop handling her for a few days. Let her be and then after 2 days try offering food then. NO pinkies. Have you have a fecal done recently?
 
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BrightReptiles

Badhabits727
Messages
948
Location
Seminole, FL
No fecal recently but she was clean in the early stages of weight loss. She is due for another, just have to find a place here since we moved.
 
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reps4life

New Member
Messages
656
Your setup is good and she has had a fecal which leads me to believe it might actually be caused by stress. It does not mean there is not other health issues involved. IMO handling should be minimal. Twice a day is too much. With some reptiles even once a day handling can lead to appetite loss. I suggest you stop the handling for a while. Continue to offer food every other day just for now. Try different food items. Make sure it's dark. Is she passing urates along with feces?
 
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BrightReptiles

Badhabits727
Messages
948
Location
Seminole, FL
Your set is good and she has had a fecal which leads me to believe it might actually be caused by stress. It does not mean there is not other health issues involved. IMO handling should be minimal. Twice a day is too much. With some reptiles even once a day handling can lead to appetite loss. I suggest you stop the handling for a while. Continue to offer food every other day just for now. Try different food items. Make sure it's dark. Is she passing urates along with feces?

Yes she is passing urate and feces normally, though not often. I have been paying strong attention to making sure she is hydrated, water bowl, moist hide, and slightly higher humidity for her. By bi-daily I meant every other day. She has not been tested for crypto, which scares me. But, the male she was housed with (separated for four months now) is doing perfectly fine.
 

reps4life

New Member
Messages
656
Yes she is passing urate and feces normally, though not often. I have been paying strong attention to making sure she is hydrated, water bowl, moist hide, and slightly higher humidity for her. By bi-daily I meant every other day. She has not been tested for crypto, which scares me. But, the male she was housed with (separated for four months now) is doing perfectly fine.

How is she doing? has she ate anything?
 

BrightReptiles

Badhabits727
Messages
948
Location
Seminole, FL
How is she doing? has she ate anything?

We haven't really messed with her too much the past few days. She has apparently eaten about 6 mealworms in the past few days (They have disappeared from her tub at least), and there is fresh poop in there when I looked last night. So hopefully she starts improving. If we don't see at least a 4gram improvement by monday we will be seeing the doctor again. If we see more weight loss on monday when we way her, we will discuss if it is time to possibly put her down. Not something we want to do in the least, but I can't see her suffer. I am hoping she pulls through, keeping our fingers crossed
 

reps4life

New Member
Messages
656
We haven't really messed with her too much the past few days. She has apparently eaten about 6 mealworms in the past few days (They have disappeared from her tub at least), and there is fresh poop in there when I looked last night. So hopefully she starts improving. If we don't see at least a 4gram improvement by monday we will be seeing the doctor again. If we see more weight loss on monday when we way her, we will discuss if it is time to possibly put her down. Not something we want to do in the least, but I can't see her suffer. I am hoping she pulls through, keeping our fingers crossed

Well, that is good she is eating. There is that chance she is just the type that can becomes stressed easily. I have seen this many times. Continue to leave her alone for the most part and leave worms in her enclosure at all times. If you are able to buy baby hornworms it may be a good idea. It has worked for a few of my reptiles to get them eating again and there are great for hydration which is a plus.
 

reps4life

New Member
Messages
656
We haven't really messed with her too much the past few days. She has apparently eaten about 6 mealworms in the past few days (They have disappeared from her tub at least), and there is fresh poop in there when I looked last night. So hopefully she starts improving. If we don't see at least a 4gram improvement by monday we will be seeing the doctor again. If we see more weight loss on monday when we way her, we will discuss if it is time to possibly put her down. Not something we want to do in the least, but I can't see her suffer. I am hoping she pulls through, keeping our fingers crossed

It's always best not to allow a reptile to go over a month without food. It can be really hard sometimes to bring their appetite back, that is of course if not caused by health problems. So her stools are firm brown and urates are white correct?
 

BrightReptiles

Badhabits727
Messages
948
Location
Seminole, FL
Yes stools are firm and perfectly normal, urate is white with very small liquid puddle on the paper towel, completely normal. I do think she will pull through this. We are probably going to get her on the scale tonight as she has been pretty active today staring out of her tub at us, hoping to see at least +2 grams by today...
 

BrightReptiles

Badhabits727
Messages
948
Location
Seminole, FL
As for horn worms I don't know anywhere out here to get them. Timberline is right here in my town (and is where we get our feeders) and they do carry calciworms so we may try those. In florida she was scared to death of silk worms so I imagine horn worms would be the same. The only thing she took happily was the live newborn pinky we gave her a few weeks ago. I hate feeding pinkies but we may have to if that's all she will eat.
 

reps4life

New Member
Messages
656
As for horn worms I don't know anywhere out here to get them. Timberline is right here in my town (and is where we get our feeders) and they do carry calciworms so we may try those. In florida she was scared to death of silk worms so I imagine horn worms would be the same. The only thing she took happily was the live newborn pinky we gave her a few weeks ago. I hate feeding pinkies but we may have to if that's all she will eat.
Don't give up on the silkworms, just make sure they are small. I order them online from:

http://www.mulberryfarms.com/ (must buy baby size to last longer)


http://www.coastalsilkworms.com/store/
 

reps4life

New Member
Messages
656
Yes stools are firm and perfectly normal, urate is white with very small liquid puddle on the paper towel, completely normal. I do think she will pull through this. We are probably going to get her on the scale tonight as she has been pretty active today staring out of her tub at us, hoping to see at least +2 grams by today...

So she seems more active and most likely she ate the worms, very good. I would recommend not pulling her out for at least a few more days if she has shown some improvement. If stress is the cause it can make her go in reverse. I know it's stressfull and tempting not to pull her out. Of course I cannot smack you in the hand:)
 

BrightReptiles

Badhabits727
Messages
948
Location
Seminole, FL
No eating since the last post. Decided tonight that we had to take it further. Made my own version of gecko soup and fed it through a syringe. She didn't like us putting the syringe in her mouth at first but stopped fighting it as soon as the food started coming and she gobbled it right down. She took about 1.5ml of it, and that was good enough for me. We will do the same tomorrow. I know it may stress her out but at this point I'd rather know she is taking in a healthy amount of food whether we have to force it on her or not. We will continue this for two more days, and then I will probably switch to just ground mealworms with smaller amounts of calcium+d3 mixed with a little water in the syringe.
 

Golden Gate Geckos

Mean Old Gecko Lady
Messages
12,731
Location
SF Bay Area
Keep in mind that bacterial infections do not show up on routine fecal tests, and parasitic infections only test positive if they are in their reproductive stage. Frankly, I've never seen a gecko go this long and have such a skinny tail from stress... there is definitely something else going on that only a vet can diagnose. The majority of these problems can be treated if caught early enough. In the meantime, I would like to suggest using my slurry for her. This will help keep her sustained and produce a stool for the vet to examine. You can find the recipe on the "INFO" page of my website.
 

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