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I have had a few leopard geckos but never a baby. The first night i didnt put any food in to let him get used to things. Last night i put some crickets in and he tried to go after a few but missed. I then went to the store and bought some meal worms and he didnt even pay attention to them. It seems as though hes using his toungue rather than his eyes though to find food. Is it like them to use their toungue a lot? Could he just be a bad hunter, or could he be blind? I dont see anything wrong with his eyes but i dont know.

Thanks
Eric

does it have a light on the cage?

no it doesnt

Also if he doesnt eat the crickets should i take them out...there is only 4 in there. I want him to be able to eat when he wants to.

If he can't eat the crickets, take it out. The crickets will stress him and thirsty and hungry crickets will eat just about anything including your gecko. I've seen geckos that are badly bitten by crickets, so definitely take them out.

One word of advice about feeding crickets to him. What I do is pinch off the crickets' back legs. This way it makes it much easier for the leo to eat them. IF you are trying to fatten him up, you can try tong feeding him. I pinch off the crickets back legs and use a forcep or tweezers to hold crickets infront of my leos and all go nuts over them. After he has fatten up, maybe you can try let him hunt for the crickets all by himself.

Also sometimes they have trouble if the crickets are too big. i would try 3 week old crickets

i have meal worms in there to that he hasnt eates...he shouldnt have a problem hunting those

But it tries to eat crickets and refuses mealworms? use crickets this big >OIOI

the crickets i have are just a little smaller....how long can the gecko go without eating at this age? and how long will it take for me to notice his/her tail getting thinner? it still looks the same as of now

Well, the longer a gecko goes without eating, the more difficult it will become to get it to eat. Your gecko looks healthy and if it isnt losing tail weight then it may be an indication that it has a slow metabolism due to temps. I use 95 on the hot side and 75 on the cool end

do you use any kind of heat bulb?

You can use a heat bulb, especially if the temperature dip too low in the winter and your geckos are not eating or are throwing up food, but generally they prefer something warm to lay on to raise their body temperature like snakes do.

When i used to keep leopad geckos i used an UTH but will that keep the temp on the hot side up to the right ammount?

Air tempurature into the 60s is probably unnatural for a leopard gecko so unless it is that cold in your house i would not use a light. Heat lights dont allow for a tempurature gradient. I use 95hot and 75cold so they have the ability to either sit on the heat to digest food or stay on the cold to slow their metabolic rate if they do not want to eat. This is easy to do in a glass tank with a 8watt 8"x8" Exo terra "desert" heat pad in a room that stays between 70 and 80 degrees.

Well i could not find that exact one but i bought a repti therm zoo med UTH. I could not imagine this alone though making the hot side of the tank 95 degrees. Do you have yours hooked up to something that controls the temp?

I dont like the ZM heat pads because of how hot they get(compare the wattage per size compared to what i have tested to be true) I have used a temp gun on a zoomed pad adhered to a glass tank and it exceeded 170 degrees! I havnt seen a gecko injured from these pads but it is uncomfortable and unnatural. you can plug it into an outlet on a dimmer switch though. Just remember 70-80cold side and 95 hot side. An infrared temp gun is the best tool i own

alright well im not going to be able to get the dimmer switch tonight but i will try and pick one up tomorrow the heat pad is 24 watts....i have a thermometer in their now so im going to see how hot it gets. the gecko still hast eaten so hopefully this helps.

ok so the heater has been in there for a few hours now...the tank is up to 80 degrees...i dont think its going any higher...how do i get it to 95 degrees in the tank with just the heat pad?

In there? you put the under tank heater UNDER the tank right? I have to guess that you are getting an inaccurate temp reading. 95 feels slightly warm to the touch, like the hottest temp you would comfortably touch the cheek of your face to. UTH do not raise ambient temperature only the surface it is touching

Oh ok yeah it is warm to the touch. I thoguht you mean it was supposed to be 95 in the actual tank on that side. well thanks for your help. I just put some crickets in so i hop he starts eating soon!

You can raise them on bulbs, that's what I did with the three of mine when they were younger, but as I stated before they prefer belly heat than the heat from the bulb.

I have a hatchling with the same problem. He wasn't eating or hunting for the crickets so I put him in his own tank. I have found that the only way he'll eat is if I dust the cricket and squish it's head to kill it and put it in front of him then he will eat it. I'm going to do this for a couple months and hope that when he is bigger he will eat on his own. GL
Heres a pic of mine