not eating much or being responisve

[carlie]

About your leo:
- Sex : female
- Age & Weight: 1 year 4 months, don't know weight but vet a couple months ago told me it was normal
- How long have you owned your leo: year and 4 months
- Where was he/she obtained (ex. Pet store, breeder, wild caught, friend): +++++

A) Health/History
- How often do you handle your leo: usually daily
- Is your leo acting any different today? If so how does he/she normally act which differs from now: it's not different from normal but not normal for a healthy gecko...



B) Fecals
- Describe (look any different than normal): look like they always have and how they should look from what i've seen online
- When was the last time he/she went: she went like 4 days ago
C) Problem
- Please briefly describe the problem and how long it has been going on

She used to eat a couple crickets per day and has now stopped eating crickets at all and will only eat meal worms on occasion. She'll have maybe only 3 meal worms per week! She also has never been very responsive. For a while I thought she was partially blind. In order for her to catch her own crickets id have to continue flinging them in front of her face or stabbing them in place so she'd have time to notice and catch them. I leave the mealworms in a dish all day long, but she never touches them. Every day I have to take the meal worms out of the dish, put them in front of her face and make them move. and only MAYBE will she try catching it and eat. She also hasn't been leaving her hiding at all and when I lift the cave up it's like she doesn't even notice anything changed.. just stares off in a blank stare.

Housing:
A) Enclosure
-glass 20 gallon tank
-green reptile terrarium liner
- 2 hides: one is a stone cave other is a tuberware container with eco dirt and water with a cover and hole as the humidity box
B) Heating
- Heat source: 2 older heating pads and a heat lamp
- Cage temps (hot side, cool side): 85 degrees on hot side i dont know about the cold side
-have a thermometer attached to wall on hot side
-during the winter I keep a pillow case laid over one half of the cover to keep more heat in
C) Cage mates
- no cage mates

Describe Diet:
A) Typical diet
-used to eat medium sized crickets about 4 a day that were covered in calcium and gut loaded. now she only eats meal worms that I try to coat in a multi vitamin powder a breeder suggested. and she only eats once or twice a week or even less. Sometimes only one meal worm sometimes 4 it varies. In the last week she has eaten 3 meal worms one on one day 2 on the other.
-the meal worms stay in a dish all day, but when feeding I take them out and make them move in front of her face
-the gut loading i did with the crickets was i think flukers the water and food in one and id also put carrots or other vegetables in there occasionally. I don't gutload the meal worms


Any ideas or suggestions?!!

 

[sausage]

you can still gut load the mealies. you can feed them veg, bug musli, fish food and some times bits of ham.
one of my males is a bit like this but i just think that he is old and lazy, only eats if i hold it for him lol.
geckos will enter brumation at this time of year so a slower eating rate is normal. can you add a picture of her so we can see her size and fat store.

 

[Phoenix1115]

Also see if you can raise the floor temp on the hot side to 90-92F

 

[carlie]

re:

Also see if you can raise the floor temp on the hot side to 90-92F

Well I have 2 heating pads on the floor on the hot side, but don't have a thermometer down there to check it. The thermometer is placed in the upper right corner of the wall on the hot side.

And here's some pictures I just took today.

and in response to sausage she's been eating like this off on and on since may so its not just a seasonal thing

 

[sausage]

buy an infrared thermometer from ebay. Pen Type Non-Contact Infrared Remote Sensing Thermometer Temperature Red UK | eBay somthing like this, they are cheap and realy good.

if her age is correct she is coming up to sexual maturity so maybe season and life stage are both playing a part. she looks in really good condition so i personally wouldn't be worried.
keep a record of her wight, if she starts to lose weigh take her back to the vets.

 

[carlie]

okay thank you! and is it common for leopard geckos to not be very responsive? Like she just stares off in blank stares almost at all times
Also, do female geckos like to have cage mates? Do you think that would that cheer her up? haha
Sorry, lots of questions.

 

[sausage]

i think so. im looking at two of my females now and they are just staring into space lol. leos are crepuscular so will be most active at dawn and dusk and probably when your asleep and not around lol.
I kept females together in small colonies or with just one other female cage mate for many years however this proved to be not a good idea. in my experience some that were raise up together got on well for many years but became aggressive to each other in later years. and some never took to cage mates atall. leos are solitary in the wild so it doesn't surprise me that they dont get along too well.
i have herd of some people having success in keeping females together but in my opinion they were just luck, i wouldn't personally risk it again. potential high vet expenses arnt worth the risk.

 

[carlie]

Oh okay. Good to know. Thanks again!

 

[sausage]

by all means get another gecko just keep them apart. you can never have too many geckos