Hello everyone!
My leopard gecko, Angie, has been with me for three weeks (not sure how old she is- her stripes are barely even visible now) and from her second day here up until a couple of days ago she has been eating like a champ! I've made sure that the first week was simply cleaning duty and feeding her with a pair of feeding tongs. I've rotated between crickets and mealworms, however it seems as if she doesn't like the taste of crickets as much as she does mealworms. Anyway, at the beginning of this week she went into shed. Ever since then it appears that she hasn't been eating nearly as many mealworms as she had before (minus the day after she finished shedding because I didn't feed her in that period of time and new she ate her shed). I'm assuming this is partially due to reaching the month of November and the other half would be her being very flighty and cautious around the feeding tongs.
I have no idea what I may have done to cause her to feel so nervous around her feeding tongs! Over these two weeks she has been a lot more interactive in feeding time, such as coming out of her cave just to nab at a mealworm and then coming out little by little for some more. However, it seems like as soon as she felt she was able to do this, that no matter how slow I lowered the tongs to a corner of the tank and slowly approached/got her attention to the tongs, she would take a step back and almost direct her head away until she noticed the mealworm squirming. It seems like she forgets all about it when she sees food. I've had instances where I lower my tongs as slowly as possible and as soon as she catches sight of it she bolts away deep into her cave and looks out at the back entrance. This disrupts her feeding time because now she doesn't want to eat and this leaves me kind of concerned. What I've been doing is, as long as she's gotten a good amount of mealworms I'll wait until tomorrow to try again. I'm not sure if I should give her a couple of minutes and then come back to try again once she's calmed down? It seems like her head sits at the main entrance of the cave after she's calmed and it leaves me wondering if she's either looking for the mean ol' tongs or she wants more food again.
It seems like she has also applied this flighty reaction to my hands. Maybe it was because it was half an hour later but I let her see my hand move around slowly and she quickly arranged herself at the back of her cave. I showed my fingers at the back entrance and she allowed herself to touch them with her head. I felt like that was good enough and left her at that. Do you think there's something better I could do for her? Is there a way to help her feel her feeding tongs aren't a threat, such as laying it in her tank or something?
My leopard gecko, Angie, has been with me for three weeks (not sure how old she is- her stripes are barely even visible now) and from her second day here up until a couple of days ago she has been eating like a champ! I've made sure that the first week was simply cleaning duty and feeding her with a pair of feeding tongs. I've rotated between crickets and mealworms, however it seems as if she doesn't like the taste of crickets as much as she does mealworms. Anyway, at the beginning of this week she went into shed. Ever since then it appears that she hasn't been eating nearly as many mealworms as she had before (minus the day after she finished shedding because I didn't feed her in that period of time and new she ate her shed). I'm assuming this is partially due to reaching the month of November and the other half would be her being very flighty and cautious around the feeding tongs.
I have no idea what I may have done to cause her to feel so nervous around her feeding tongs! Over these two weeks she has been a lot more interactive in feeding time, such as coming out of her cave just to nab at a mealworm and then coming out little by little for some more. However, it seems like as soon as she felt she was able to do this, that no matter how slow I lowered the tongs to a corner of the tank and slowly approached/got her attention to the tongs, she would take a step back and almost direct her head away until she noticed the mealworm squirming. It seems like she forgets all about it when she sees food. I've had instances where I lower my tongs as slowly as possible and as soon as she catches sight of it she bolts away deep into her cave and looks out at the back entrance. This disrupts her feeding time because now she doesn't want to eat and this leaves me kind of concerned. What I've been doing is, as long as she's gotten a good amount of mealworms I'll wait until tomorrow to try again. I'm not sure if I should give her a couple of minutes and then come back to try again once she's calmed down? It seems like her head sits at the main entrance of the cave after she's calmed and it leaves me wondering if she's either looking for the mean ol' tongs or she wants more food again.
It seems like she has also applied this flighty reaction to my hands. Maybe it was because it was half an hour later but I let her see my hand move around slowly and she quickly arranged herself at the back of her cave. I showed my fingers at the back entrance and she allowed herself to touch them with her head. I felt like that was good enough and left her at that. Do you think there's something better I could do for her? Is there a way to help her feel her feeding tongs aren't a threat, such as laying it in her tank or something?
