Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hey all, back with another question,
so my leo didn't have parasites it was an impaction as the vet suspected. the impaction was the upper half of a mealworm exo- skeleton. luckily it came out with a does laxitive the vet gave and some warm soaks I gave him. so basically I'm wondering how I can prevent that from happening again. my leo won't eat crickets (tried and tried, he won't touch them), and wax worms are almost entirely fat, so what do I feed him? I've heard of people using meal worms for the leo's entire life and the vet didn't have a problem with it, but I don't want my little guy to suffer another impaction; those are so painful and they can get life-threatening really fast if not treated properly. any suggestions are appreciated. I may end up calling the vet and getting his opinion as well but I'd like input from more than one experienced herp caregiver.
thanks much!

silkworms are soft bodied so you don't have to worry about that plus i think they are probably healthier than mealworms are.
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Leo's:
1.1 pastel double-het patternless rainwater albino.(Tetris.Mongolia)
.1 Albino Het Aptor (mango)
.1 Hypo Het Albino (cheeto)

Chameleons:
R.I.P. -Rocket(old age-5 years!!!) and Regina(eggbound)

Wanting:
cresteds

see that's what I've heard but the problem is I've also heard they're really hard to care for and they're really expensive. though I'd rather pay a little more for food than pay for cheap food and a bunch of vet visits.

if you buy larger silkworms they are less expensive in the long run than smaller one. yea i would say it is worth the little extra money

would butter worms be okay as a staple as opposed to silks. they seem a bit more managable from what I've read thus far and even though they're a bit more expensive than the silks they'll last longer, becuase there's no way he'll eat the full cup of silk worms in two weeks.

if you live in the UK theres a website that sell's silkworms egg's and worms n stuff in good bundle packs. like £10 (about $15) for around 100 egg's plus the food to feed them with, and they also sell silkworm breeding packs. from what i read they look very easy to breed, but takes a month or two to breed a batch, but if you stick at it then it could be worth the wait. the problem with your mealworm impaction is most likely a rare sight, anything your gecko eats can cause impaction, but the likelyhood is much much less than the substrate. i myself have the same problem with your gecko, he wont eat a cricket to save his life, and he also doesnt like mealworms. in his total time i've had him he's eaten about 30 crickets and a small handful of mealworms and waxworms. ask your local pet shops about breeders for silkworms, sadly there isnt anywhere even close to where i live that supplies silkworms, only the large ones which are the same size as grasshoppers, and there as big s my gecko!

hope any of this helps

thanks for all the info that was really nice and would be helpful if I weren't a bug hater. I can't stand bugs at all and I feed my leo by dropping the food in with tweezers (except crickets, I used a cricket corral wand for that), which means no breeding silkies for me. it seems easy enough and it'd probably be really cheap but even with gloves I can't handle touching insects. thanks much for the info anyways though, it is appreciated.

>>hey all, back with another question,
>>so my leo didn't have parasites it was an impaction as the vet suspected. the impaction was the upper half of a mealworm exo- skeleton. luckily it came out with a does laxitive the vet gave and some warm soaks I gave him. so basically I'm wondering how I can prevent that from happening again. my leo won't eat crickets (tried and tried, he won't touch them), and wax worms are almost entirely fat, so what do I feed him? I've heard of people using meal worms for the leo's entire life and the vet didn't have a problem with it, but I don't want my little guy to suffer another impaction; those are so painful and they can get life-threatening really fast if not treated properly. any suggestions are appreciated. I may end up calling the vet and getting his opinion as well but I'd like input from more than one experienced herp caregiver.
>>thanks much!

What size mealworms were you using and how big is your Leopard Gecko? What are the temps for the warm side and how is heat being provided?
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MK Geckos
Your Source for Leopard Geckos!
MK Geckos Forums

I used meadium mealworms for feeding and my leo is about 4-5 inches long and about 1-2 inches wide. those are rough estimates but should be relatively close. the warm side of his enclosure gets up near 95 degrees and the cool side stays near 80 degrees (it gets a bit cooler at night, but not by much).
honestly I'm beggining to doubt both impaction and parasites because I switched him back over to solid food on thursday evening (one wax worm) and he was fine all day friday so I put another wax worm in assuming he would defate in the middle of the night and then go eat. well this morning when I woke up he hadn't touched the live wax worm and he had thrown up the wax worm I had fed him thursday. it was barely digested at all (since fat digestion doesn't start until the small intestines). he had defacated a small amount of extremly dark, runny fecal matter and a normal amount of urate. so on monday when the vet opens up I'm taking him in for xrays so me and the doc can figure out what on earth is going on with my little guy. but while I'm waiting he's back on the food/medication mixture the vet gave me and hopefully he'll get better.

sounds like a really good plan. i've no idea what it must look like to see regurgitated food, and i thought he would have kept the waxworm down. you temps seem a little high, usually when my temp reaches 95 , i take the lid off his tank to let most of the hot air escape. what kind of thermometer are you using? i myself use one that you just stick on the side of the tank (not a good choice i know) but, i have the UTH at the opposite of the therm, and make sure no light (or as little as i can) touch the therm as this will give a much higher reading (depending on the light) as it will be reading both the air temp and surface temp.

im sorry to hear about you and bugs. i myself have no problem, and have even had fed my gecko squished crickets, headless mealworms i've had to behead myself lol crickets are the worst as there quick and seem to be able to crawl on anything. i cant really see how you can get around it. compared to crickets, worms are the worst of your worries, hope you get past it, and hope your leo pulls through =)

if the impaction still hasnt passed, then it's possible this is what's making him regurgitate his food. but, its still a good idea to take him to the vet though, they should be able to straighten your problem out =)

I have been trying to make sure I feed my leo meal worms (super or king ones) only after they have just shed their exoskeleton. So far I haven't had a problem. She hasn't really been eating crickets that I've noticed, so I decided to try them. Hopefully the same thing won't happen to mine! How many were you feeding and how often? Maybe it had too many? I do hope yours gets better! Good luck.

lol another solution is to buy canned worms. sounds pretty insane lol but from what i heard there alot softer than store bought ones, maybe try them? the guy before me (forgot this name ^^) made a good point, usually (or so i've seen) is mealworms shed there skin once and turn a lighter colour and are alot softer, then shed it again and go into a little pupate thing before they turn into bugs (if you've seen it you'll know what i mean)

hope your lil guys getting better!

Thanks to all for all the suggestions. right now he seems to be getting better again so I'm just taking everything one step at a time. I think he may have had a minor impaction but because the first vet didn't think of impaction being the reason for him not eating so it got infected by bacteria causing him to throw up and causing his digestive system to go on the fritz. the laxative and antibiotics took awhile but today he had his first solid defacation so I'm guessing that his system is starting to go back to normal. I'm going to attemp to feed him one small wax worm and see how it works. if it doesn't I'll call up the vet and find out what steps we should take from here. most likely baby food until his digestive system is again fully functional. its become progressivly harder for me to get him to eat his meds which is a mix of baby food, antibiotics and vitamins that the vet made, so hopefully we'll figure something out. this morning I couldn't get him to eat it for anything. he just let it all dribble off his mouth. thanks again for all the suggestions and help!

Roaches and Phoenix worms are good alternatives to meal worms. I haven't looked into roaches in 3 years so I forget which kind, I'm sure someone knows (maybe lobster?)