Still on the Hunger Strike

[kitten]

My year and a half old female is still on her hunger strike. It's been somewhere between 2 and 3 months. Some points:

She has not lost ANY weight during this.
She has shed 3 times since she stopped eating.
She has eaten all but the skin that comes off her head.
She is still drinking, because the urate is in the cage, just not feces.
She was checked before all this started and was negative for parasites.
I moved her into a smaller tank due to needing to downsize, however that was a few days after her hunger strike started.
She has always lived alone.
She has always lived in our living room.

Could ovulation or something have anything to do with this? I'm really not terribly worried because she hasn't lost any weight, still shedding, and she's still as active as she was before.

 

[JordanAng420]

Hey Cassie,
Ovulation can cause anorexia in leos however, it usually doesn't last for 2 or 3 months. ~What are your temps on the hot side/ cool side?
~Substrate being used?
~Heat source?
~What kind of insects are you feeding? Have you tried something other than her normal
diet?
~Even though she was NPS for parasites, has she ever been strategically dewormed as
a precaution? Consider checking another sample, too.

 

[kitten]

Hot side is 93, cool side is about 76-80.

Substrate is repticarpet.
She is offered crickets, mealworms, and superworms. She has rejected them all. I tried waxworms too, but she doesn't want them.
She was dewormed as a precaution.
Heat source is UTH.
I can't check another sample right now when there's no feces.

 

[OhioGecko]

If she has not eaten in 2-3 months she would have lost weight. What are you using as a wet hide and could she be deficating in it?

 

[kitten]

There's moss in the humid hide. She's not defecating in there, I just changed the moss today and there was no feces in it. Like I said, she eats her skin, but refuses everything else I've offered her.

 

[kitten]

Here's a pic of her for reference.

http://img527.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pict0218h.jpg

 

[d13t_p3ps1]

I am having the same sort of problem, though it's only been about a month for my gecko. And she hasn't completely quit eating, but she's eating nowhere near enough. Like two or three crickets every other week. My temps are the same as yours, I keep my girl on tile, and she still looks completely healthy. Just isn't really eating. I would say to make some slurry and see if she'll take it, that's what I am planning on doing.

 

[gothra]

This may sound weird to some, but I do have ovulating females that aren't bred go off food for more than 4-5 months. They did lose weight (up to 15% of the body weight), but will eventually resume eating all together when the time has come, which is usually June/July.

I had them tested by the vet for all sort of possibilities, and never found anything. However, I had one female ended up with follicular stasis, and had to have her ovaries surgically removed. She survived the surgery but died half year later due to fatty liver; because she stopped eating for too long when she was having problems with the ovulation.

I don't know, but I will feed my non-eating females a little bit of slurry (I just mash one jar of babyfood with lots of mealworms, plus calcium and vitamins) once every 10 days or so. So they do have food in their stomach, and will at least have some calcium and vitamin intake just in case they want to develop some eggs.

If the vet cannot find any other illness with your female, just give her a little bit of slurry so she doesn't go off food for too long, and try not to worry too much.

p.s. This year, I have one female that decided to lay infertile eggs (I never bred any of my leos), she laid the second clutch yesterday, and she is eating very well!

 

[Jamez]

Is she well acclimated to being held? If she is pretty comfortable with humans, hands, etc, have you tried hand feeding her mealworms?

My Leo is retarded (figuratively) and I spoiled him early on so if his eyesight isn't locked onto his food dish when I give him mealworms then he'll be oblivious to the fact that they are even in there and think that I'm going to hand feed him. He's currently recovering from a prolapsed hemipenis so I'm stuck with spoiling him all over again and I've been hand feeding him. Just try to get the mealworm to "twirl" itself towards your Leo's face while you're holding it in front of her. There's been plenty of times where "retard Neo" has latched onto my finger instead and then I'm stuck trying to explain to him why he needs to open his eyes and let go, haha.

 

[kitten]

Jamez, she's not accustomed to being held at all and really freaks out if I try to pick her up. She lets me pet her, and is fine with my hand in the enclosure but she doesn't like being held. I don't hand feed, but I use a pair of hemostats to hold the worms in front of them/drop them into the enclosure (depending on the gecko). When one of my other geckos was a baby, he was the same way and either didn't see the crickets or was too slow to ever catch them. I'm used to spoiling them

 

[kitten]

I don't know, but I will feed my non-eating females a little bit of slurry (I just mash one jar of babyfood with lots of mealworms, plus calcium and vitamins) once every 10 days or so. So they do have food in their stomach, and will at least have some calcium and vitamin intake just in case they want to develop some eggs.

If the vet cannot find any other illness with your female, just give her a little bit of slurry so she doesn't go off food for too long, and try not to worry too much.

I'll do this. I really wasn't terribly worried because of the no weight loss. I work at a vet clinic so I'll pick up a can of a/d tomorrow at work and use that.