When Assist Feeding Fails During Ovulation

[Neon Aurora]

I'm not going to post the form because I know this isn't a husbandry issue. I have a female leopard gecko that began ovulating in February and completely stopped eating and she is not doing so well. My other ovulating females at least eat enough so that they maintain weight, but she has not eaten a thing in forever. I've tried so many times to assist feed her by poking worms at her until she opens her mouth and putting them in. I have had great luck doing this with other geckos, but she won't do it. It takes forever to even get her to open and no matter how many times she clamps down on the worm she spits it back out. She still weighs 55 grams, which is weird to me because she looks terrible. She has lost a lot of fat on her tail and also on her body (she still has enough, like I'm not worried she is going to die or anything). I'm positive she doesn't have parasites. It's just ovulation. Her poops when she has them (not terribly often, but I guess she must be eating something...) look very normal with a white urate and she is still very active (actually super active, much more so than the others). I've also tried different food items (dubias, crickets, and mealies). Didn't try waxworms because I don't like them and I've never found my leopard geckos to be tempted by them (open to trying this, though).

I have some Carnivore Care on hand that I bought a long time ago in case I needed it and I'm thinking I might need it now. I've never used it before, but it's preferred to me due to my lack of a blender to make slurry (I could correct this if needed, I'm not resistant to buying a cheap blender). I've also never actually had a gecko that needed liquid food, so this is a first for me. Should I start using the Carnivore Care on her?

 

[acpart]

I have a bias against Carnivore Care, mostly because I'm a speech therapist (who deals with feeding) and I feel that liquid/puree is worth avoiding if possible because it can be very hard to get the person/gecko off it and back onto solids. As far as eating/ovulation goes, I have the full range at my house: geckos that eat no matter what, geckos that lay off eating for a month or more and then start up, geckos that lose weight, geckos that don't lose weight . . . at the moment my worst cases are 2 fat tails who have laid 2 clutches each and lost a huge amount of weight. One will eat voluntarily and one I have to heavily assist. I have a non-breeding female leo that refused to eat and went down to 30 grams. I am literally stuffing mealworms into her mouth (I'm not choking her. If I get them in the long way down the right side of her mouth far enough, she will swallow them) 3-5 every single night and she's up to 33 grams.
My hierarchy goes like this: offer food. If there's no eating within a week or so, assist feed by holding the gecko and pushing the feeder at the mouth. If there's no willingness to accept that, I continue to offer/assist each feeding time and don't really worry unless the gecko starts to lose a lot of weight.
I find that as the years go by, I can start to determine each gecko's pattern of eating/not eating. I also get a sense of which geckos have stopped eating but are still basically healthy and which ones have stopped eating because they're getting to the "end of the line". I had one of those this year, but all the cases I mentioned above feel to me as if they're going to survive. I hope that was helpful

Aliza

 

[Neon Aurora]

Yeah, I'm really reluctant to start a liquid diet. I like to avoid it as well. I'm fairly skilled at the assist feeding worms and have had a lot of geckos take to it. But I can't make this one. It's a battle just to get her to open her mouth and even if I do and I get a worm in longways, she will spit it out regardless of how far it goes in. I just don't know what to do with her at this point. I'm definitely open to not doing Carnivore Care and continuing to attempt assist feeding. She is just getting below what I'm comfortable seeing.

Here's a picture of her currently to show why I'm uncomfortable. I usually don't worry and they start eating again before losing too much weight, but she has lost so much and nothing I've done has worked.

 

[DrCarrotTail]

While she is starting to look a tad thin I don't think she looks terrible. I would leave her totally alone for another month and weigh her every other week. If she gets below 50g then I would start assist feeding and consider taking her to a vet. I am very conservative about assist feeding. I believe most geckos that stop eating have a good reason for doing so. Pumping food into their system when they know better can do a whole lot more harm than good. I've had females get fairly thin but I've never had one die on me. They always seem to start eating at the 11th hour and pop back as long as the rest of their husbandry is correct.

Most of my female, especially first time breeders, totally stop eating when they begin ovulating and don't eat until after they lay their first cluch. In extreme cases they don't eat until after their second clutch. I might also consider triple checking your temps and bumping them up to at least 90 but maybe a bit higher about 92-93 to see if that stimulates her appetite. Best of luck!

 

[Neon Aurora]

Thanks! I think I'm somewhere in the middle with assist feeding. I do start doing trying to do it when they begin to drop weight like this one, but otherwise I don't. This is actually the only one this season that I have wanted to assist feed (I have assist fed in other seasons when needed). Usually I leave them be, but she is making me nervous. I'm okay with leaving her alone for a while longer. I'll leave her be and see if she drops more.

This one is not a breeder. She was a 2016 hatchling that didn't sell in time before she started dropping weight. She is kept in my breeder rack, regulated by a Herpstat. Their temps are at 92. Everyone else is doing okay except her, so I don't think it's the temps.