Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello! I'm sorry if this is a question you've seen fifty billion times, but Iit's a new problem to me and I just don't know what to do.

I've had my leopard gecko Kinbote for about 4 years. I feed her calcium dusted mealworms once a week, and she's grown from a tiny little critter to a 5 or 6 inch long adult (who has laid eggs once). Up until recently, she's had a big ol'fat tail...wider than the thickness of her head. But in the last few weeks...she's stopped eating. I don't know why. The temp hasn't changed, she doesn't look sick, she's still active and moves around a lot. The only thing that has changed was that I added a rock cave for her (plastic, advertised as safe for geckos. She outgrew her previous log) and tried a new type of sand (finer grain, also supposedly made for geckos). It's been several weeks since she's eaten and her tail is growing thin. I'm really worried. Could the new sand have impacted? If I take her to a vet, can they tell if there is impaction? And if there is, can anything be done?

What other types of food can I try? She's a miserable hunter...I have to shake the worms in front of her to get her to strike at them, and even then she misses a lot. she'd never catch crickets.

I'm really worried. Can a vet help?

If you have any suspicion that your gecko may be impacted, I would take her off of the granular substrate. Now that the seasons are changing it is not uncommon for a gecko to change their eating habits. Just keep a close eye out for weight loss, and on your temperatures at this time of year.
I’ve dealt with a picky eater/poor hunter in the past. The things that she seems to enjoy are freshly molted crix and mealworms. She had a hard time catching the crix, so I cut off all but one or two of their legs. The crix would just run in circles, and she would be able to catch them. Recently I’ve gotten her to eat waxworms, but I don’t feed them to her often.
Again, I wouldn’t suggest sand or any other granular substrate for a leopard gecko that is a poor hunter and tends to miss their food. Hope this helps, and let us know if you have any more questions.

DaveCable

thank you so much for your advice.

If I remove the calcium sand from the tank, what do I replace it with? I've heard people mention paper towels, but I don't really see how that would work. Plus, the heating unit is underneath the glass at the bottom, so I thought you were supposed to have sand over it to keep it from getting too hot. What medium would you suggest?

Paper towels or newspaper is a safe substrate for leopard geckos. The warm end should be about 88-90 though I have a few that really seem to enjoy a spot slightly higher, as long as they can easily move away from it.

Do you have a rheostat (a sort of dimmer switch that plugs in to the under tank heater)? With a thermometer you can adjust the rheostat so the hot spot is 90 degrees even if your under tank heater would otherwise get warmer.

Is she having stools? Do you see any sand in them? You might try using a small plastic container (margerine tub size or larger) with air-holes and half an inch of warm water in it. Place her inside and put the container on the warm side of her tank. In many leopard geckos (along with other herps) this will encourage stool to be released. An hour should be more than enough.

If none of this helps, I would take her to the vet.

Good luck, you've obviously done well with her for 5 years and I hope this is just a little glitch.

One more thought, a lot of leopard geckos go off feed for a couple of weeks as the weather and light change for winter. Usually they are only off feed for a couple of weeks though.
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Andrea A.

Andrea gave you some very good advice. I use either paper towels or newspaper in all my leopard gecko cages. I have one tank with slate tiles, it looks a lot more natural, but it is not practical for all my enclosures. You need to buy a rheostat (dimmer), to plug your UTH into; this will allow you to adjust the temperatures down to a comfortable 90 degrees. Good luck, and keep us posted!