Uninterested in most feeders

[Phantom240]

So I've had my leo for three weeks now, and she's starting to get frustrating with her feeding habits. The first four days, I didn't try to feed her, as I knew she'd take time to acclimate. The two days after, I put mealies in a shallow makeshift dish (cut the bottom out of a plastic cup, maybe 1/4" tall), and she would walk over the mealies and pay no attention. A few days later, I bought crickets, and she seemed to take to them okay. Not super tenacious with her hunting, but she got some. Two or three days later, same thing, though she only got a couple because she would strike and miss. Eventually, she gave up completely and sat in the corner. Next feeding a few days later was the same story. Then my shipment of dubia roaches came in, and a couple days later I used tongs to feed her, and she took 3-4 of them. They were medium sized, around 1/2" to 5/8" long. Since that feeding about a week ago, she's become quite uninterested in the roaches. She completely refuses to hunt them, and will eat one maybe two if I tong feed her. She won't hunt mealies (I had some giants because the pet store was out of regular large mealies), and a couple had gotten under the tiles and freshly pupated (white), and they were enormous. When I picked them up with the tongs, they wiggled like crazy and she happily ate them.

So to sum up:
Mealies - Won't hunt, but will eat with tongs, as they wiggle and entice her.
Crickets - She'll hunt, but gives up fast. I'm thinking that the 24x18 enclosure plus 5-10 crickets running around stresses her out. Will readily eat them from tongs.
Dubia - Won't hunt. Sometimes eats them when offered with tongs.
Wax Worms - Won't really hunt, but I only offer them once a week, and only a maximum of two.

Haven't yet had the opportunity to feed her Butterworms, Silkworms, or Hornworms yet.


So it seems I have a Prima Donna for a leo. Won't hunt much on her own, but readily accepts from tongs. Is this unusual? Is it okay? If I stop tong feeding her, will she eventually get hungry enough to want to hunt?

 

[OnlineGeckos]

They can get used to tong feeding, so yes it's normal. And yes if you stop tong feeding, she'll eventually get hungry enough to eat on her own. But chances are, like most people, you'll feel bad and want to feed her anyway because you know she'll for sure eat when you tong feed her. I find this tong feeding problem to be more of a case when they are younger. They do tend to grow out of it eventually.

 

[Phantom240]

I honestly don't know how old she is. I forgot to ask the breeder when she was hatched. I assume she's probably around 6-10 months, based on size (around 7"), and shedding at close to a two and a half week interval. Time will tell though, I suppose. Good thing I fed her last night, because I won't be able to feed her again until Sunday, due to events I have to attend to this weekend. She had a good meal last night, so this weekend she's going to get some much needed peace and quiet lol.

 

[DrCarrotTail]

In short, my answer would be: she's probably not hungry don't kill yourself trying to entice her to eat.

I've had a few adults and babies even that seemed to barely eat. They wouldn't eat by tongs, wouldn't hunt, nothing. They're still alive and fat and happy today and I just leave them alone, change their dish of mealworms every few days and let them regulate themselves as they want/need to. I do weigh them once a week or so to make sure they're not losing too much weight.

Also, around February when the breeding season started and they began to ovulate I had a half dozen that stopped eating completely. I'm not even sure if they were eating or not until the last month or two when they started to chow down again but they didn't lose enough weight to have me concerned over the winter.

 

[Phantom240]

I dunno what's gotten into her for the past few days, but she's developed a VORACIOUS appetite. She seems to prefer eating in the morning rather than at night. I've figured this out since I lost my job last week, lol. I've been getting up around 7 every morning, and whenever I sit at my computer desk, she perks up inside her humid hide (Clear deli cup with moist paper towels) and instead of the usual half-lidded eyes she usually has, they were wide open and intense, like when she hunts crickets. I put a dozen giant mealies (still have a few left from when I first got her) into the makeshift feeder bowl, and she ate them as fast as she could get them down. Strange. Yesterday, she ate two Dubia roaches that were quite large on Sunday evening as well.