How Long do I Need to Slurry?

[5HiddenLizards]

My female has been eating about two full eye droppers of slurry a day, for almost a week. She just stopped eating one day. I tried different foods, but so far she's eating the gecko slurry pretty well. I am going to try giving her a mealworm to see if she'll take it, but how long do I need to provide the slurry? Until she starts eating whole food again? I haven't noticed any weight gain yet, but I've only seen one set of feces. I do need to buy a scale so that I can weigh her, but that won't be till later this week.

 

[gothra]

She isn't going to eat if she has a belly full of slurry. How old is she? I usually won't give slurry unless the gecko stops eating for weeks. If she is not sick (or ovulating), she will resume eating normal food when she is hungry. Stop the slurry for one or 2 days, then offer her crickets or mealworms; if she looks at them with those big interested eyes - that's a good sign that she'll resume eating soon. If she doesn't eat immediately, leave a dish of mealworms or crickets in her enclosure overnight; she might eat them when you're not looking. I would try offering for at least a full week before going back to slurry again.

 

[5HiddenLizards]

Ok, I will try that. But when I first started the slurry, she hadn't eaten for a week & a half. At first she was eating mostly mealworms, with a few crickets here & there. Then she stopped eating the worms and ate crickets for a couple days, but wouldn't eat either after about 3 days of crickets. So I waited 2 days and offered some really small dubias. She ate those for another 2 days & then stopped eating. I kept worms in a dish while she was eating the other bugs, but she never touched them.

I'm not sure how old she is. She's a petstore gecko. She was small though. About 4in.

This is what she looked like when we first got her.

The first picture is from when she first stopped eating.
And the second is of today.


I have been keeping small mealies in her tank, just in case, but no luck.

 

[fl_orchidslave]

If she's eating that much slurry she should be ready for worms. I've transitioned mine easily by spoon feeding and slipping a few worms along with slurry. Once they took the worm, that was it for the spoon feeding.

 

[5HiddenLizards]

Ok, I will try some worms tonight once she gets out of hiding. I just want her to put some weight back on. I'll pick up some wax worms tomorrow & see if she'll take those too.
Thank you for the replies.

 

[gothra]

How long have you had her? From the 2nd pic, the tail seems starting to shivel, that means she has lost quite a bit of weight/fat storage in a short time. If that happened within 1.5 weeks, I would be pretty worried. How are your temps? And how is her enclosure set up? Sounds like she ate fine before. From my experience, the shivelling of the tail is a bad sign; I would at least get a fresh fecal for vet check.

 

[5HiddenLizards]

We have had her for 2mo. She was eating really good when we got her. This just happened recently. Her hot side is around 98, humid hide stays 90-drops to 85 at night. And the cool side is at 80 during the day, dropping to 75 at night. Her substrate is 3in of washed sand. I found a fresh poop this morning. That is only the 2nd since she's eaten slurry.

 

[gothra]

I don't know, temps sounds ok although I keep mine 93-94 on the warm side; but many keep theirs on the high 90s with no problem. Just want to make sure you are measuring the temps on the floor, right? Then there is the sand problem that I'm not going to touch on (I'm not against sand as I have used sand before, but that's still a possibility). All I can say is that rapid thinning of the tail is not good. If she is my gecko, I would definately take her to a vet for thorough exam. Don't forget to bring in a fresh stool sample for parasite test too. (The stool sample is best to be within 24 hours and not dried; you can put it in a zip-lock bag and store in the fridge until you can take it to the vet. But still, the sample shouldn't be any longer than 48 hours.)

 

[5HiddenLizards]

I have a infrared temp gun that I bought for my monitors that I now use for everyone. So the temps should be accurate. But yes, i am waiting for a stool sample.

 

[5HiddenLizards]

Autumn has started eating again, small dubias & mealies, I put a couple crickets in tonight to see if she'll go after those. She is finally putting out some regular feces. She had only been expelling urates as far as I could tell. Maybe now I'll be able to take a fecal into a vet. But I am excited that her feces are starting to look normal & that she's eating solids again.

 

[fl_orchidslave]

That's great

 

[gothra]

Autumn has started eating again, small dubias & mealies, I put a couple crickets in tonight to see if she'll go after those. She is finally putting out some regular feces. She had only been expelling urates as far as I could tell. Maybe now I'll be able to take a fecal into a vet. But I am excited that her feces are starting to look normal & that she's eating solids again.

That's great! You know, whenever a female gecko stops eating for no reason, lose weight, and then all of a sudden eats like a pig again; that's probably due to ovulation. And the owner will have to endure this stress year after year...

 

[GeckoGurl]

Glad to here she is doing better! Hopefully everything will be just fine!

 

[5HiddenLizards]

Well, I thought she was ovulating a while back, i had made a post then, but I wasn't sure if she had eggs or not. http://geckoforums.net/showthread.php?t=63752
This picture is from July, she was still eating, very little though, and it seems like after the egg-like spots disappeared, she stopped eating & started losing weight.


But so far she's been eating solids the past two days. She ate the three crickets I put in last night, haven't noticed a dent in the mealworms yet.

 

[fl_orchidslave]

She may have had some infertiles but absorbed them. Not uncommon at the end of breeding season. Glad she's back on track now