Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,

I took StarGecko's advice and got an UTH since my babies were not eating as well as i thought they should. I am pleased to say that by the end of the night 4 mealworms got divoured. My question is, how much should they be eating?
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I'm not sure at what age a leo becomes a juevenile and not a baby, but my 3-4 month old will easily eat 10 crickets a night. I know your suppose to feed them till they stop eating but mine doesnt every see to stop. I usually limit it to around 7 crickets a night and a mealie or two once in a while.

i always have some malies in their tank, as well as all my leos, my two hatchlings 18 g and 12 g take down 20 mealies some nights. To get rid of my super i fed them to my babies i put in abot 8 i think and there were only 2 left in the AM. They are little pigs but they are eating great.
Good luck
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Lauren
Leos and Uros

There has to be something wrong them with mine... They will only eat about 1-2 mealworms a day! I just leave them in their cage. I followed the advice of a fellow forum member and got an UTH last night and they seemed to pick up a little bit (they were only eating like 1 a day...) What else could i do to pick up their feeding???
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Good move on adding the Under tank heater! With that on one side of the tank, the babies should start doing better almost immediately. Can you check the actual temperature on the bottom of the tank, where the gecko's bellies will be?

Also, are you feeding in the evening? Because they are nocturnal by nature, the babies may be more inclined to eat if you feed right after sundown. Mealworms move around more when you first put them in, making them more likely to be eaten when first added. A few of my leopard geckos, mostly younger, need to be tempted a little before they'll eat. I dangle one mealworm in forceps (aka hemostat). It wriggles a lot, hopefully catching the leos attention. Then I can lead the baby/babies to the food dish.

Another thing to try is a food dish with shorter walls. Until they learn to associate feeding dish with actual food, some act like its just a weird piece of cage furniture.

Other than that, all I can suggest is things to lower general stress levels .. being sure there are plenty of hides on the warm side and a couple on the cool side, large enough moist hide, cage not to huge for the babies to find their food in, cage in a relatively quiet place -- not in the living room if you (and your family) watch much loud TV especially "action" shows.

Also how large are your babies? Full grown mealworms can be pretty darn huge to a hatchling! Full grown crickets can be impossible for small leos too. Can you get 4-5 week old crickets? They're about half an inch long and young leos (mine at least) LOVE chasing & eating them. hm.. . that's all I'm coming up with off the top.

I didn't read your earlier post, so please excuse any redundancy. Best of luck to you & your critters!
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Andrea A.

I also read somewhere that someone suggested using a see through mealie dish so that the leos can see the worms wiggling around in it. Might be worth a try.

Thanks, but i already use a shallow see-through dish
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well i have 6 young (20 gram/4 month old) that eat 70 crix every other day if that helps.....

also if there 4 months what size are they supozed to be??? Mine seem larger than most peoples,

well thanx