Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,
My leo has an eye infection which I am treating with antibiotics from the vet. The vet told me I needed to hand feed her till she can keep her eyes open and hunt for herself she gave me some advice but im still a little hazy on the issue. So here is my question. What hand feeding techniques have worked for you in similar instances I can get her to open up and i can place a mealworm or pre-killed cricket in her mouth but she promptly spits it out. What do I need to do to stimulate her appetite or recognize the object as food? Any advice is appreciated. She is a 3 year old female and is very docile and has never offered to bite the only time she has hissed since I have had her is when the vet was removing the bad shed skin from her eyes today.

Poor girl . I wouldn't recommend hand feeding live insects unless you can see that she is properly chewing them. I have heard of too many horror stories (myth or not) with mealworms chomping out of the stomach of sick leos.

When I had to hand feed my little one (who unfortunately didn't make it ) I used a syringe the vet gave me. You have a few choices of what you can feed and how you can do it. If the food is in a liquid form it makes it easier to feed, easier to digest, and harder to spit out. I would recommend feeding baby food (some recommend only meat, but any kind will do) mixed with your calcium and vitamin supplement. Depending on how long your leos eye is a problem or if your leo will take the baby food you can make a mixture in your blender. I will warn you it is disgusting and you will consider never using your blender again. Take a little bit of water, your calcium powder, a bunch of live bugs (oh I guess you could freeze them, I wish I had thought of that earlier ), baby food if your leo likes it, and blend them up into a smoothie.

You said that your leo will open her mouth for you so that should make things easier. You can even try just putting the food on her lips so she is forced to lick it off, this way is more tedious for you but less stressful for your leo.

The most important thing you NEED to do for your leo (more important than feeding it) is to keep it hydrated. Your leo has a much higher chance of dying from dehydration than starvation. They can live weeks (I'd say possibly even months) without food (as long as it has a good storage of fat) but only days without water.

Good luck!!!

Lisa
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0.1 Hypo Leopard Gecko
0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko
0.1 Blizzard Leopard Gecko
1.0 Albino Pacman Frog
1.0 Lovebird (Tony)
1.0 Elkhound Cross (Otto)
0.1 Malamute Cross (Paris)
6.0 Bettas

I'm sorry to hear about your poor little leo! The above advice is really good, I've tried similar combinations of food myself and my girl pulled through. If you don't want to mess with the live bugs in the blender though, this is what I did:
Mix as jar of beef baby food (I used gerbers because it comes in smaller amounts) with a couple table spoons of Jumpstart (a high caloric supplement/appatite stimulant made by ESU), add some calcium (w/vit. D3) and vitamin powder and electrodize (a supplement containing Vit D3 and electrolites) or gatorade/pedialite. Feed a couple of ccs twice a day with a syringe. My girl liked it more when it was slightly warm (NOT HOT). This combo makes a lot of food for a little lizard so you can freeze the extra in an ice cube tray and thaw it when you need it so it lasts longer. This is what got my girl through an infection that almost killed her. Now she's back up to fifty-seven grams and will breed next season!

I really hopw this helps and good luck with your little leo!
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*****
Emily

2.4.3 leopard geckos (Nelson, Zander, Zoe, Baby, Houdini, Munch, Gizmo, Zig-Zag & Beau)
1.1 ferrets (Oliver and Delilah)
1. budgie (Max)
0.0.1 Ring neck Parakeet (Kiwi)
1.1 German Shepards (Jake and Abigail)

The Spotted Gecko
**Updated 11-09-04**

Try ripping the head or butt off of a mealworm then put it by her mouth so she can lick it she might eat it.(I cant guarantee it will work but it worked for me)
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-Ryan