Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi its me again its almost been 2 weeks tomorrow and my crested gecko hasnt eaten anything ive tried baby food and he wont eat it ive only seen him eaten the baby food 2 and i offer crix and nothing i am very stressed out i dont think that crested geckos are easy to take care offi dont want to quit on him so can anyone help me plz i am in desprate help plz anyone!!!!???? thank you

where did you buy him from?

what size tank is he in?

how is it decorated?

what is the temperature?

what type of baby food do you offer?

what size crickets do you offer?

are they too big?

are you misting him daily?

are you counting the crickets to make sure he isnt eating?

are you putting so much baby food in that you cant tell if he has eaten?

2 weeks sounds like an awfully long time for him to go without eating. i think he has probably eaten something.

has he lost a significant amount of weight?

have you tried weighing him weekly to see if he is gaining, losing, or keeping the same weight?

was he wild caught? is it possible that he has parasites? or is he guaranteed captive bred.

these are all questions that need to be answered in order for us to be able to help you the best we can. please answer them to your best ability and that will help me and others guide you in the right direction.

i bought him at reptile depot,hes in a 5 1/2 size tank theres moss as substrate and 2 sticks at the top theres a fake ficus plant,the temp is is 69 the humidity is 73, right now im offerin apple souce, crix are about the size between his eyes, i am misting daily yes i have counted and last time i put 2 and only found one thats i think ok, the baby food is in a water bottle cap and i have seen it and it is the same ammount, i think he has lost weight he also has wrinkles on the bottome of his stomach,and i dont know if he is wild or cative born thank u this are all the answers to the qiestions u asked me kozmo02

my suggestions would be to lose the moss substrate and switch to paper towels. This will make it easier for you and the gecko to see food and how much hes eating, as well as when hes deficating. Also i'd switch and use peach, mango, apricot etc babyfoods, no citrus. And at this time its illegal to import any rhacodactylus from New Caledonia so you won't see any wild caught animals, but that doesn't say thiers no parisites.
Nate

first off, applesauce is NOT a suitable food.

you need to be using real baby foods, such as gerber baby food.

use fruit but NO citrus.

here is a good list:

fruit medley
peach
apricot
pear
banana

You need to get rid of the moss substrate and use newpaper or paper towel at the bottom so that the crested gecko can see the food. it also makes cage cleaning much easier, just throw away the paper and replace and clean the glass as necessary.

5.5 gallon sounds small, what size is the gecko? if it is still quite young this will be ok.

Technically 69 is fairly cool. I would try him at 78, that is ideal temps for them. If he is in a 5.5 gal tank... he must be small so he will probably only eat a few licks of food to begin with. Taking the moss out is a good idea but leave in a large plastic plant leaf or 2 if you have one. it makes it easy to check and something for it to hide in.

As far as eating if it easy enough to dab some food on its nose and let it lick it off its nose. Then as he starts to lick it put the spoon or whatever you used in its face and it should start to take it off the there. I wouldnt use apple sauce either but to be honest babyfood isnt any better. Look at it, it has less then 1 GRAM of protien in it. How is an animal going to grow muscle mass with no protien??? I strictly use T-rex GARGOYLE diet on all my cresteds reguardless of age.

But that should atleast get the animal started if its reluctant to eat.

Eric

Eric,

what you said about babyfood not being a sufficient source of protein is true however, he did state that he was feeding crickets as well and those are a protein source. While the powdered gecko diets out there are nutritionally balanced feeding babyfood and crickets with supplements is ok too.

From what I've read, heard ,talked about with others, feeding powdered balanced diet over babyfood/crickets diet are both viable healthy diets for cresteds and one hasn't been proven to be better over the other method, more its a matter of personal preference of the crested keeper. At least that's my take on it.
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"I've got a fever and the only cure is more cow bell!"

No, I agree if you mix it. I was saying a babyfood only diet is a poor diet and someone I thought eluded to feeding just babyfood.

Hi,

I have bred over 50 baby cresteds and I find that the best thing to feed these litte guys on is a piece of paper plate cut into triangles. It is level to the ground so he does not need to climb to get into the bowl or what ever you have the food in just cut the plate small enough so that the food is completely on it this will be easier and also I have noticed that mine go crazy for fruit medley the most but I give this 2 times a week I like to get mine on crickets. Wish you luck with this Hank

No worries, maybe someone did allude to that... I just saw what the original poster had said about what he wes feeding and wanted to point out that he was providing something besides babyfood for protein. Hope I didnt come off harsh, that wasn't my intention. Now lets hug! I just got done reading THE thread a little higher up, its the first drama I've seen on this board. Some nasty quotes in there,but then I frequent online game message boards too, now if you want to see people throwing a fit on a message board, no one can do it like a gamer!
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"I've got a fever and the only cure is more cow bell!"