Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've had my new little gecko a week now. She is 1 month old. She is eating the calcium powder and drinking water but has not eaten ANY mealworms. She still looks healthy and is active but I'm concerned about how long this can go on. She did shed about 2 days after I brought her home. Does this affect their eating? What can I do to interest her in the worms? When should I get really worried? (She is 'pooping' and is on papertowels so I know its not impaction)
Thank you so much!

Presuming you have enough hides and your temperatures are in the right range (88–92 degrees F at the warm end, 75-80 on the cool end, with hides at or near both ends), and you're not trying to handle the gecko a lot yet (give him/her a while to get used to the new place before you start harrassing him/her ), there are still a couple of factors that are possible.

Sometimes mine goes off her food for a little while (a day or two beyond when she'd normally eat) after shedding, and obviously the stress of moving can put them off their food for a bit too. A thing to try would be to drop a cricket or two in there. Some geckos have to be trained that mealworms are food. Crickets, on the other hand, set off that reptilian 'if it moves and it's smaller than me, it must be food' instinct, and so are more readily seen as food by most lizards.

As far as how long this can go on without worrying, I've heard of people seeing them not eat for up to two weeks after a move to a new environment, but that would be an extreme example. Bottom line though, their tails store fat, so they can live for a fairly long time w/o food if they have a nice chubby tail. When you see the tail start to shrink, start worrying.

I'm sure others will have comments too, but I think I covered at least the basic possibilities here.
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear

Yeah, that's what happened with mine when I first got it, and he was about a month old. He didn't really recognize that mealworms were food yet, because they had been feeding them crickets. All I did was pick the mealworm up with tongs, so it wriggled around a lot. Gecko found em pretty tasty after that.

Thanks for the help. I'm hesitant to use crickets because mealworms are what the breeder had been using. I'm afraid their hopping around might stress her more since she's not used to them. but I guess I'll try them. I've tried holding the mealworms up to her but to no avail. She has started turning her head and watching them when I drop one by her so that's an improvement. You hear about peoples leos being such good eaters - I can't wait until this one starts! I know my temps are good and she has two hides one warm and moist and one dry and cool. Can't think of anything left to do but wait!

Crickets are cool because your gecko will go crazy. Mine is about 2 1/4 months old, and he'll choke down about 5 large crickets a night before he starts to ignore them. He seems to have lost interest in the mealworms. : Such a shame, because it's so fun to watch them eat those.

I guess all Leopard geckos have different likes and dislikes, which makes them so special, no two are the same lol

-Allie

i believe i am in the same boat as you and I am pretty worried.

Good news! I've been using the advice to hold the mealworm in tongs (chop sticks in my case) in front of my leo (Dot). Yesterday she ate 1 and this morning she ate 7! She tries to peck at them when I drop them in front of her but can't seem to get a hold of them. By holding them up they wriggle a lot and she can get them in her mouth. Keep trying! Hopefully it will work for you too.