Taming an adult leopard gecko?

[ketz]

Hi everyone,
This is my first post so I'm sorry if this is in the wrong section, but I couldn't find any better one.

So, I've had my leo for about 6 years and I first got her when I was pretty young so I was kinda scared to handle her often so she never got used to it and "tame". But now when I need to move her for cleaning, stuff like that, it becomes this huge issue because I try to pic her up and she freaks out. She bites, thrashes her tail at me and won't let me pic her up. After all of that she hides for 4 days or so before she even comes back out. So I'm wondering, is there a way to tame her at this age? Can anyone give me some good steps to help her calm down?
Thanks a lot!

 

[acpart]

I sold a leopard gecko to someone and after the gecko got bullied by its cagemate, I took it back to restore it to health. It was very frightened and would squirm and bite whenever I picked it up. Here are some things I did:

I put my hand in the cage and talked to her without trying to pick her up, just to get her used to my hand, smell and voice.

I tried offering her hand-fed food

I would gently scoop her up from below, rather than picking her up from above, make a cave of my hand and let her move around in the "cave" without being restrained.

Eventually she got calmer and would tolerate some short term handling.,

Good luck.

ALiza

 

[SDahmer]

I just came across a situation like that. My girlfriend's sister's leo is 5 and was never held since the lps told her not to (wtf?). She supposedly bites and never lets anyone handle her. So yesterday I went over and had a go at it and it went pretty good. I just placed my hand flat on the cage floor palm up and nudged her slighty with my other hand. Eventually she crawled completely on my hand and I took her out. Apparently shes a jumper, but no bite attemps. I'm gonna try handling her whenever I go over and hopefully she'll take to handling. :main_yes:

 

[ketz]

Thanks for the responses everyone! So, when she thrashes her tail at me and waves it all around, does that mean she's about to drop it? I wasn't sure if they drop it just from being stressed out, or if they actually need to have it pulled, or touched. I didn't want to pick her up if she would drop her tail.

 

[GeckoNub]

From what ive read and my own experience they wave their tail when they are annoyed, similar to a cat.

I think the thrashing is prolly a more agressive way of the same thing.

I think it takes more than just picking them up to make them drop their tail.

When we got Yoshi we had an accident and his glass tank somehow got knocked off the bookcase we kept him on, falling about 5 feet and smashing on the floor. Apart from a few scratches he was ok and kept his tail.

I think for them to drop their tail they need to have it really pulled on or feel really threatened so i would think just picking them up is fine aslong as you're not grabbing at them too much.

Ive also found that they get used to being handled faster if you just let them walk onto you and let them walk on your hands, dont try stroking them cos it can freak them out. Once they are used to walking around on your hands then you can try stroking their head and body. I know my oldest 2 love the top of their head stroking

 

[Palor]

One of my Leos loves to be held, when you open his cage and put your hand flat, he will walk right onto it

Patience is really the key to a tame reptile