dragging belly?

[DarwinWallace]

Hi all, I'm new to the forum. I have two leopard geckos 2 years old . A little backround first, They are litter mates and a year ago a female from the same clutch died ( not sure why i was just told that) Originally they were on zoo-med calci sand with over head lighting ( as well as undertank heating). The female has always been half the size of the male ( small tail as well as body...proportionate though). The female has never had much of an apetite, the male usually eats well and they are both very picky usually eating when they want to, which has forced us to leave crickets in the tank without knowing how many they are actually taking. They will only eat wax worms The female laid a cluctch of eggs last year that were sunken in ( not sure how long they were there because we had no idea she was preganant). I switched them onto repti carpet reading how bad the sand can be and hoping this may change there eating habits and i turned off all over head lighting...tried that for about 6months and it seemed to make things worse for the female. She was loosing a bit of weight was refusing food all together. So we recently ( about a week ago) switched them back to sand because thats what they had been on for 2 years without any issues. So now to present day. The Male has stopped eating for 2 days.. the female is eating way more now she even ate a horn worm which for her is very out of the ordinary (being the picker of the two)...but yesterday i noticed her dragging her belly she's using both front and back legs to move but wont pick herself up to walk...I tried to check for eggs but I'm not sure if there are any in there. There is poop in the tank..seems to be one with urates and another with a small amount of poop and urates...which leads me to beleive they both have gone in the last week. I know this is a lot of info but I'm not sure what I can do... aside from taking them to the vet. Do pregnant geckos do this? Is she vitamin deficient?

 

[mango+cola]

First off, if you are not prepared for eggs you need to seperate them. I'm not sure how experienced you are with geckos but breeding them can be challenging and very costly, so if you want to continue, make sure you do ALOT of research.

I would switch the sand for paper towels, sand is just too risky to their health, and why risk it when you don't have to. They can be fine on sand and then just one day decide to eat it, which can cause impaction which leads to huge vet bills.

If the male is assuming dominance he could be bullying the female which is why she never ate for you, its better to just keep them seperate unless you intend to breed, and even in this case, most people only put them together for a few months and then seperate them, males are very territorial.

Stop feeding them wax worms, they are very high in fat and should only be given sparingly as a treat. If a gecko goes from not eating to eating wax worms they can develop fatty liver disease which can be fatal.

Ive heard eggs can be sunken in if the gecko has not been getting enough calcium, maybe a breeder can shed light on this. Do you have a calcium bowl in their tank at all times? This is a must, especially for pregnant geckos.

2 days is not a long time to stop eating, but since you just switched them onto sand I would consider impaction as a possibility. A vet visit is probably in order for both of them.

The dragging of the belly is probably a sign of a calcium deficiency. Are you dusting their food?

Posting your set up will help too, temperatures, amount of hides, things like that.

 

[katie_]

Agree with mango.

Sand is always a possible problem, even though you might have gotten lucky in the past.
If your female has a bloated abdomen and has trouble walking - she could be impacted. She needs to see a vet. ASAP.

 

[sausage]

what type of vitamins and minerals are you feeding her.
could be a sign that she is having problems suporting her own weight on her legs. could be early signs of MBD.