Is she a bit thick? Or Blind?

JennyBeen

New Member
Messages
87
Location
Denver, CO
Esper.jpg

This is Esper. I purchased her at Repticon from a breeder on Saturday (the photo is one taken by the breeder). No complaints there; she seems healthy and I liked her colors. I admittedly don't know what her morph is; I didn't ask because I'm just keeping her for a pet, but with recent events I feel like I should have asked (anyone is welcome to take a guess!).

She is a two year old retired breeder, having had just a clutch or so of eggs. She lives alone in a ten gallon tank and seems to be doing just fine. She's come out to explore and does not seem to fear humans at all. I have not tried handling her at all since she is still adjusting, but she will come out and give my finger a lick, which I consider decent progress.

When it comes to food though...I'm a bit stumped. I realize she has only been with me for five days, but what gets me is that she seems interested in the food I have offered to her (I offered a mealworm via tongs starting yesterday, and then a phoenix worm via tongs today). She obviously has no idea what tongs are, and comes out when she seems me holding an insect, only to stair up at my fingers/hand holding the tongs (..?). The mealworm even tapped her nose with his tail, and she did no more than lick it.

This evening I dropped a phoenix worm in front of her hide, and she did come out, seeming interested and searching for it. Only she was very, very bad at finding it...and she didn't. Even when she was VERY close. I attempted again to tong feed her the very wiggly bug, and she simply wouldn't go for it, like she couldn't see it.

I also notice she is very slow moving in her tank; I have seen her navigate it several times (she really likes water) and uses her tongue a lot of the time going along her way, which, by the way, is quite slow. She has climbed on the other hides and checked everything out, but it strikes me as odd that she seems almost back to square one again each time :/.

Tonight I am leaving a few phoenix worms in an escape-proof dish in hopes that the color contrast on the white will make it easier for her to find them. Hopefully they are gone by morning :/.

I should also mention her eyes; they are very pretty, but look cat-like when she seems startled or excited at something...is that a type?

Sorry for the long post. Mostly, does anyone else have similar behavior geckos, or is it just because she's new? And can anyone guess her morph?
 

laurahlove

New Member
Messages
410
Location
Florida
My girl jewels is the exact same way. I'm convinced that she's somewhat blind. She can't seem to find a worm, any kind, but she can see a cricket running around the tank. But even then she has a hard time finding it. She also moves about very slowly and cautiously, licking the air. I can put my hand in her tank and stick it right it front of her face, and wave it around, and she won't see me. Then I touch her nose and she runs. And when I hold her, she will flip out and squeak a million times UNTIL she licks my finger a few times and realizes its me. I know she's not blind, but I know her vision is not completely okay.

So no, you're not the only one :p

I would suggest though feeding her crickets. Try taking everything out of her tank and putting one cricket at a time in. See if she can see those. And make sure that they are large ones.
:)

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JennyBeen

New Member
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87
Location
Denver, CO
Ewwwwwww I hate crickets!!!!!

But I really appreciate your description! That does sound exactly like her behavior, so I'm glad it isn't just me. She is a nice gecko, so I suppose it will just be something we live with!

The breeder said he had fed both crickets and superworms...I'll say I'll go for supers 5x faster than I will crickets! Hopefully if she did alright on superworms, a big enough squirmy mealworm might do the trick? Here's hoping.

I also realize that she might just not like phoenix worms. I will leave them in there with her tonight in the dish, but if she doesn't go for them, I'll leave mealworms in instead. Annnd if no improvement by the weekend, I guess we'll be going superworm shopping. And yes. Maybe I will buck-up and purchase like 5 crickets. -_- If that's what it takes.....
 

DrCarrotTail

Moderator
Messages
3,590
Location
Ridgewood, NJ
I have a couple leos with fairly bad aim but they definitely aren't blind. I would keep tabs on her weight and make sure she isn't losing any without eating. It is not uncommon for an adult gecko to go off food for a few weeks when they are rehomed. The stress of moving and living in a new place is more than it may seem. I'd try to leave her largely alone and just leave 5 mealworms in an escape proof dish. Most breeders don't use phoenix worms often (at least none that I know do) so she may have never seen one before and the mealworms may be more familiar. Recount them every morning or so to see if any have disappeared and replace them when they don't move after a gentle shake to the bowl.

Good luck with her! She's a very pretty gal!
 

JennyBeen

New Member
Messages
87
Location
Denver, CO
Yes, this is the plan! I'll pull the few phoenix worms out (she didn't eat them) and replace with half a dozen fresh mealworms that will hopefully be quite squirmy and a larger target. This dish is right next to her water bowl which she does venture out to take drinks out of a few times a day, so hopefully they will catch her eye. She has a few items in her tank she can (and has) climbed on before too, so I'm hoping if she's more far-sighted, she'll see them as well.

I will then leave her be and hope for the best.

Her tail doesn't look any thinner than it had been when I got her on Saturday, but while it looks satisfactory to me, it's not as plump as in the photo shown of her above and could use a little thickness. I'll attach a photo of a google-searched gecko who compares with her tail thickness below.

healthytail.jpg
I'd describe it as not skinny, but not really super fat either.

Anyway, thanks for your help. I'll let you know when she eats something (we'll be counting worms every morning!). Here's hoping I don't have to cave to her and get crickets!
 

JennyBeen

New Member
Messages
87
Location
Denver, CO
Just curious, why do you hate crickets so much? :)

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Ha ha, let me count the ways...

-I hate that they chirp.
-They take up more room than other insects.
-They can't be left in with the gecko in fear of them biting at them.
-They are dirty, and stink.
-They are buggers to catch, and if they escape in your house (or apartment in my case), you'll hear that annoying "chirp!" in the middle of the night, but you can't find them.
-Trying to catch them again after being put in the tank is really difficult.
-In general, they creep me out. I don't like that their movements are unpredictable!

In 6th grade I babysat the class frog who was an avid cricket-eater and learned many of these things first hand...not just making them up!

However, I'd admittedly be more open to the idea of them if we had a heated garage or basement where they could go away and not be seen. I'm not a huge fan of insects in general, but having the fridge to keep mealworms in that essentially makes them dead-like so they don't move as much is more do-able, and I don't have to look at them, hear them, or smell them!

I have yet to touch a mealworm, by the way! Tweezers are my friend.
 

laurahlove

New Member
Messages
410
Location
Florida
Ha ha, let me count the ways...

-I hate that they chirp.
-They take up more room than other insects.
-They can't be left in with the gecko in fear of them biting at them.
-They are dirty, and stink.
-They are buggers to catch, and if they escape in your house (or apartment in my case), you'll hear that annoying "chirp!" in the middle of the night, but you can't find them.
-Trying to catch them again after being put in the tank is really difficult.
-In general, they creep me out. I don't like that their movements are unpredictable!

In 6th grade I babysat the class frog who was an avid cricket-eater and learned many of these things first hand...not just making them up!

However, I'd admittedly be more open to the idea of them if we had a heated garage or basement where they could go away and not be seen. I'm not a huge fan of insects in general, but having the fridge to keep mealworms in that essentially makes them dead-like so they don't move as much is more do-able, and I don't have to look at them, hear them, or smell them!

I have yet to touch a mealworm, by the way! Tweezers are my friend.

Hahahaha! I feel the need to respond to all of your reasons:

-indeed, they are extremely annoying in their chirping. I've never gotten use to it, my brother is able to sleep with them in his room but I have to store them in my closet lol.
-they really don't, actually. I keep up to 75 crickets in here.
717d2a8931afa902901e4e1d5f9b7806.jpg

-yup, you have to take em out of the tank if they don't eat them. But I feed them to my geckos one by one, it solves that problem. When I got my first gecko, I used to dump 20 crickets into her tank each week. Poor girl! I was pretty clueless back then.
-that, I can't argue with. They are dirty and smelly. But if you keep them on whole grain cheerios or oatmeal, they don't smell nearly half as bad. :) (plus they eat it.)
-yeah, they can be hard to catch. But that's something that you get good at once you've come to the point of buying 75+ crickets a week, you know? Lol
-it can be, but again if you do it one by one you most likely won't have that problem. And if you do, just take all of the furniture out of your tank. Makes it a lot easier to catch that one stray.
-yeah! Let me tell you, my first gecko was small. She got the baby crickets, I could handle those. But I had this rock thing in her tank that they apparently liked to hide in. Well one had been hiding in there for a while and had grown into a full size cricket. It. Scared. The. Living. Crap. Out. Of. Me. And I had to get it out! It crawled up my arm and I actually screamed. But now, here I am working at a pet store selling these giant things and they actually just crawl all over me. (Not to mention the roaches.) You get use to it really :p

Also, they can't be stored in heat or they'll die. Just so you know lol. They need room temps to survive.

And hey, I feed my girl foster (she has MBD) crickets with tweezers so she doesn't bite my finger off! You don't have to touch em! Just grab em by one of their big legs. :)

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JennyBeen

New Member
Messages
87
Location
Denver, CO
Ha ha, thanks for taking the time to respond!

Okay, I'll admit you taught me a few things that are good to keep in mind.

And as for heated garage or basement, I mostly meant for winter...I live in CO and it gets quite chilly here, so they'd at least need room temps ;). Buuuut again, I can pretend they don't exist when they're in either of those places! I just don't have either one right now.

In any case, while more informed, I'll stick to my worms whole-heartedly if I can help it! ;).
 

JennyBeen

New Member
Messages
87
Location
Denver, CO
So I've gotten some answers as to why Esper was acting the way she has been!

Last night, I walked in to her hanging out in the moist hide (I didn't even know she knew it was there...it's the type that is tall and has a tunnel thing that leads to a "den" area, where I had put a moist paper towel) and to her skin being very white! She then proceeded to rub all over. She was just about to shed!

Everything makes much more sense now. She actually did most of her shed in front of us, moving around the tank. I've not witnessed it before, but is it supposed to come off all in one piece? It was more like six pieces for her, and she spent quite a long time working at her feet (which, with my other gecko and his recent shed problems, made me super nervous). She still had two feet left when I went to bed, and she retreated to her moist hide again (which I replenished with moist paper towel). I really hope she's alright and got it off! I'll be sure to check once I get home this evening.

And as for eating, I believe she did!!! We put about 11 mealworms in the dish, and there were about half as many this morning :D.

I'm thinking the shed thing explains her slow movements, her lethargy, and lack of appetite. I feel much better and more optimistic for her now. Hurray!
 

indyana

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,336
Location
Massachusetts, United States
Haha, awesome. Yeah, shed cycles can certainly cause geckos to act weird.

Also, I concur, I hate crickets too. >_< Now, dubia roaches I have developed an odd fondness for though.
 

JennyBeen

New Member
Messages
87
Location
Denver, CO
From what I read about the roaches, I feel like I'd sooner like them too. They supposedly don't smell as bad, can't climb or jump, and live for a looong time while being hardy...they don't bring me the same concerns that crickets do! That being said, I've never seen a dubia roach in person.

In any case, I'm thrilled she seems tolerant of the mealworms! She doesn't eat very many (we put 11 in the tub a few days ago, and now we're down to six), but it's enough that I'm confident she's fine. We'll always make sure she has some. She's still not into tong-feeding though, which makes it hard to get her to like us :/. We'll keep working though.
 

Leo

New Member
Messages
35
Location
United States
I also realize that she might just not like phoenix worms. I will leave them in there with her tonight in the dish, but if she doesn't go for them, I'll leave mealworms in instead. Annnd if no improvement by the weekend, I guess we'll be going superworm shopping. And yes. Maybe I will buck-up and purchase like 5 crickets. -_- If that's what it takes.....

I tried phoenix worms with my Leo after I was told how nutritionally superior they are, and not ONE was eaten. Leo hated them. Apparently this is a common issue with leopard geckos.
 

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