Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hey guys , i have had my male henkeli for about 3-4 months now , and he is doing great except for one thing. he only eats outta my hand , i have to hold the cricket in one hand , him in the other , n then he will grab it w a vengeance , but otherwise , he duznt seem to care about them in the cage , or in a cup . please give me some tips on how to get him into eating completely by his own. thanx
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John woodward
JW REPTILES

Are you sure he won't eat by himself? I'm sure you aren't standing around his cage all night watching him. My suggestion would be just to stop hand feeding him. When he gets hungry enough he'll hunt by himself. If he loses a tremedous amount of weight and it is obvious he isn't feeding you should try something else.
-Matt

OMG... If he eats out of your hand, he eats on his own... don't worry about it...
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Ben

ive had this animal for three months now ... i have closely monitored its feeding , and to my knowledge , it has only eaten when i am holding it , and it feels the antennae of the cricket near its face. the crickets just stay in the cage , n he duznt seem to care about them. ive seen them in there 2 days later , n counted them up , n they are the same amount i put in there. ( i of course removed them. thanx
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John woodward
JW REPTILES

Maybe you landed yourself a spoiled gecko from the Uroplatus Royal Family then...

Trust me; it is eating on its own... However, if you are seriously worried about it, switch it to a paper towel substrate so it has no problem seeing the prey (and you have no problem seeing they are disappearing)...

OR... you could build a hand-like thing and you could teach your gecko to tap a button causing this hand-like thing to drop out a cricket and hold it there...
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Ben

ben , i do not know if you are joking or not , but i do wish that you would please stop being sarcastic , i am trying to get an honest answer about an honest question , not someone making fun of me , could you please refrain from doing so , unless it is in some way ( legitatamately) useful to the well being of my gecko. I came here looking for help , not to be discouraged by someone who thinks that im just too ignorant to know that my animal is eating on its own. i dont mean to offend you , but you have certaintly done that to me.thanx
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John woodward
JW REPTILES

i think after ben's first point he was somewhat aggitated. in his first post he meant to say, if the gecko is eating out of your hand, it will most certainly eat out of it's own enclosure. he's saying that because most uroplatus are sort of secretive and like to hide a lot. meaning that when you pick one up, it is much less likely to eat out of your hand then in it's cage. so, once again, it is probably eating out of it's cage. if you were to leave it in there for 3 or 4 days without hand feeding it it will likely eat. if you are feeding it one day by hand, and the next day it won't eat out of it's cage, it's because it's not hungry and probably ate it's fill while you were hand feeding it. it will find food on it's own, that is what it is used to doing.

yea, i feel ben's pain...he's often very scientifically minded around these forums, but a lot of people recently have been brushing off his knowledge/advice, so i can see why he might be getting a short fuse. but yea like others have mentioned, its nearly impossible that your animal will ONLY eat from your hand. just think about how silly that sounds. sometimes it can be a matter of weeks before i actually view new arrivals feeding, but usually if they're having a feeding problem, it's that they wont eat at all. do as someone suggested (i think maybe it was ben) and make sure the crix in your henk's enclosure are well-contrasted against the background, maybe dust them and one at a time drop them in in plain view for him. also, be sure to feed them at night. they can have trouble catching prey if there's too much light.

well i have not fed the animal in four days now . and last night i dropped four large crickets in there , they were all dusted with calcium powder. I know it sounds silly but it really was true. i will go home n count them in a few minutes. after that i will post my findings
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John woodward
JW REPTILES

well , after four days without food , i threw 5 crickets in the cage last night , four days ago i had added 2 crickets into the tank. there are now 7 crickets in the cage , all crickets had had calcium powder put on them , but it has worn off by now. any opinions welcome.thanx
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John woodward
JW REPTILES

try putting the crickets in a cup. 4 or 5 crickets freeroaming the enclosure might not be enough to give him the opportunity to spot them and feed. if they're all confined to a cup, it makes a lot more activity and should be a lot more enticing to your gecko. have you tried contacting whoever you bought it from to see what they did to feed it?

i will try that tomorrow , thanx. I purchased this animal from a large chain pet store ( ie petsmart) because i felt sorry for it. they were keeping it in horrible conditions and had it labelled as fimbriatus.
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John woodward
JW REPTILES

Sorry for my absence, got nasty virus that messed up my registery and had to format C:... Fun fun...

Yeah, my comments were extremely sarcastic, but not meant to offend you... It's just absurd to me that a leaf-tail will eat from your hand, but not on its own... It certainly gave me a laugh... But I guess can't really say I have seen or heard it ALL... Maybe now though...

And like they said, sometimes I tend to be a little more on the scientific side of things based on my experience and on the fact that I am very well read...

Is the gecko's weight ok? Is it lethargic? Does it have good eye shine?
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Ben

the animals weight is pretty good , only a little bit less than what a completely ok animal should look like , its about 9 inches long , and its weight is in the 40's , but if i neglect to feed it for a few days, for example if im trying to make it hungry , it gets really skinny , leading me to believe that it has low fat reserves in its body, its eyes look fine , he can jump well , and hit his perch hes jumping to every time, the only thing i can see wrong with it besides the fact that it wont eat on its own is it seems to be fairly dehydrated. I spray the cage every single day , but for some reason it just duznt hold moisture well. its got reptibark on the bottom , and a plexiglass top with holes in it. ive even tried sitting the animal in a shoe box half full of water to see if it would drink , but that didnt seem to help. any more help would be appreciated
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John woodward
JW REPTILES

Try showering the gex, the constant stimulus of the water will induce the drinking response, without having to douse the enclosure. Have you tried anything besides crix? Anytime I put a roach in the cage my gex go ballistic.