Getting a hand fed gecko to hunt

[FashionLad!]

My leo was at one point unable to see really anything at all. Recently, she is starting to get her eye-sight back. I adopted her from my mom's coworker's son. She used to hunt before she lost her site.

She's spent at least the last 8-10 months being hand fed baby food via syringe.

I went to the pet store and just as a test I bought a little bag of live crickets. I didn't want to overwhelm her so I just put one in. She saw it, but showed no interest whatsoever in going after it.

I know she was hungry because I pulled her out of her cage and got the syringe and she latched on to that as normal. I want to get her off the baby food and back to eating what a gecko should eat. Does anyone have any advice?

 

[acpart]

It seems as if there are 2 issues --getting her back onto food that she can chew and getting her to hunt. I think you should tackle the chewing issue first. One idea would be to hold her and gently push a small cricket or mealworm against the side of her mouth until she opens it. She may react badly at first and it may be helpful to give her a cricket with some of the baby food on it, or a mashed up cricket.

Human kids who have never had chewable food or have never been fed orally due to medical problems also have a hard time with the transition. Once you can get her to accept chewable food, she may just take off and hunt, or you'll have to figure out a way to make her more independent with that.

Aliza

 

[bman123]

I bought a leo today that has always been fed out of a bowl, I want to try to get him to hunt. I out food in there with him today but he showed no interest at all.