female leo not eating after laying eggs

[inkethics]

Hello! This is my first time joining a forum to ask for advice. Hopefully I can get a solution to my issue! I can't really see any obvious factors to my lizard's refusal to eat, so I'll just give as many details as possible.

I have a very pretty female leopard gecko (about 18 months old) who I purchased a year ago from a place I worked at. She was always at home with me and eating fine. My school has a leopard gecko breeding program that the students run, so I brought her in to breed. I'm confident in our student body's ability to care for all of our geckos, and we have to correct temperatures, substrate, care schedule, etc. My gecko ate the first day I brought her into school about 3 weeks ago, and then we put her in with a male at 45g a week later. She was with him for a few days. She wasn't eating, so I assumed she was pregnant and decided to put her in with a super docile female to relieve some of her stress. She laid her eggs yesterday morning, and now she's down to 38g, but I'm a bit concerned because usually our geckos get to eating right after they lay their eggs, but she still refuses to eat. She's pretty skinny, and I'm worried she won't eat and she might become pregnant again at such a low weight...

No signs of bullying, and she's very active. Still loves to hang around me while I'm at school, but seeing her so skinny kinda sets me off. Her diet is also the same as it is at home. Just superworms powdered with Repashy. Could this just be her going through her whole ovulation thing, or is there something I could do that might get her to eat again? Sorry if this has a really obvious answer. I'm really new to leopard gecko breeding, and just from the eyes of a gecko owner, I'd just like to know that my leopard gecko is healthy.

Thank you so much!

 

[acpart]

Welcome to GF. Sometimes it takes the gecko awhile to start eating again after laying. It doesn't hurt to hold her and see if you can poke a feeder gently at her mouth to see if she'll eat it. I have had a few leopard geckos that lost a lot of weight during breeding season and never really gained it back. Needless to say, they had to be retired as breeders. On rare occasions a gecko that may have a lurking disease can get sicker due to the stress of laying. 45 grams is a bit small for breeding.

Aliza

 

[inkethics]

Yep! Definitely going to wait a few years until she's all grown up to start breeding her again, if I decide to. Kind of a shame, since she has good genes for it! At least I'll get a few babies out of her this year that I might be able to put into our breeding program instead of her. (After all, I miss having her at home!)

I spent a long time poking around with some undusted superworms this morning, and I guess she was annoyed enough to eat them. That was a relief.

Thank you!