Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently started leaving small mealworm dishes in my leos tanks. My normal hi - yellow, Sahara, whom I purchased from Petco doesn't seem to eat from the dish, but if I use a pair of tongs or something, and drop the mealie in front of her she would attempt to eat it. After a few attempts she'd finally hit the mealie.

But never does she eat from the dish, is this normal? Also, how do I know if my leo is asleep? Should they be standing w/ eyes closed, or just looking like a pile of dead weight? Should the eyes be closed? And how can I determine a state of Lethargy and not sleep?

My male Leo won't eat mealies out of the bowl either, but jumps right on them when I feed them with tongs. As for sleeping, both my adults get all comfy & definately sleep w/ their eyes closed.

I just got my baby Leo yesterday. I had left 5 mealworms in a dish for her and she ate 3 of them. Today, I figured she may be more settled in and so I dropped 5 crickets into the mealie dish. She homed in on those quick! I think they really go for the movement. Like Jurassic Park or something. If the cricket sits still she doesn't do much but scan around. As soon as that cricket moves, she aims right at it and starts stalking. I am using baby crickets and they stayed in her calcium dish after I dumped them in. They just struggled at the inch high edge. Try putting crickets in her food dish. I don't think that crickets will jump unless they can see where they are going. Hope this helps.

1.0 Corn Snake "Motega"
0.0.1 Baby Leopard Gecko "Zubi"

LOL! Um...

Due to multiple negative experiences, I can definitely say that even week old crickets can jump VERY high and rather quickly...that is, unless they are near death, have not been properly gutloaded with food and water, or are overly caked in the vitamin/calcium powder used for dusting (I admit to having overly "shake n' baked" a few batches of mini-crickets in my time!)

I agree, movement is key. My leos eat anything I put in their dishes, so I don't have this problem...but sometimes for entertainment purposes, to get them really into attacking the meal worms, I'll put a bowl of mealies in and drop a couple onto the bowl from some height w/the tongs. This gets the whole bowl wriggling and my geckos go nuts -- it's rather cute to watch them get so excited.

None of my reptiles would ever think of sleeping in the open unless they were really ill. During the day, most sleep in their hides. Early evening to early morning, they come out to roam around. Some will close their eyes and bask under the heat lamps/on hides/flat out on the ground. When they're sleeping, they curl up with their eyes shut tight. The little guys wake up pretty quick if I disturb them but I have some juveniles and adults that I could put a jackhammer next to and they'd still "play dead" and keep their eyes shut until I actually touched them. The basking leos will open an eye or two very quickly when I check in on them/enter the room just to check out what's going on.
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Too many Leos
1.0 feline "Spot"
0.1 canine "Tika"

Well, judging from the many responses I will assume that she was/is just basking. I didn't know that Leos 'basked'.

More good news, this morning I saw her basking and decided to feed her. She ate 4 giant mealworms(Petco brought) and my baby Blizzard ate 2 small crickets(also from Petco) and 1 giant mealworm.

Now, recently I started leaving the hides in during feeding, and just allow the prey item to wander into the hides, and would just watch them eat like this.

It seems my leos aren't very socialable about eating, unless the items come into the hide or the hide opening they won't come out for it. SHould I be concerned?

And no they are not housed together. Sahara, the Petco Hi Yellow lives in a 10 gal w/ two hides. Nice Temp gradient no humid hide, but the tank has a few patches of moss which I mist down every other day. Her substrate is Repti-sand, and a black slate stone.

My baby Blizzard (unsexed) lives in a 20 gal tank with black calci-sand, and alot more black slate stone than the calci sand. one cool hide and a humid hide, which I mist down every other day as well.

Does this all sound okay?

(P.S.) I know the calci-sand is highly not recommended for babies, but my UTH says not to use paper towels as a substrate, and I didn't want to purchase the carpet because I do want to one day keep both Leos together in this 20 gal setup.

When you said "giant mealworms" did you buy them as giants or in a container that just said "mealworms" and you fed them the big ones? If you are talking about giant mealworms i wouldn't use them because they are fed a hormone to not pupate so they get bigger than the normal. We don't know if they are ok for reptiles to consume because they are generally fed to birds. Also your leos might not have discovered the bowl yet, if you really want them to eat out of the bowl and you don't have time to wait for them to consume all the insects out side of it, try leaving the bowl in 24/7 with mealworms in it until they discover it, don't feed them and in a couple of days they will be wondering around and stumble upon it. I put my bowl on the warm side because then the mealworms are more active. And DEFINENTLY get your leo off the sand. It isn't supposed to be used by a novice keeper and should really only be attempted by advanced hobbyists. You may not see them eating any but during the night they are most likly moving around and "tasting" different things as they move and when they do that they are getting a little bit of sand. Most of the sand will pass but over time it will collect until its to late. If you can't use paper towel then use shelfliner, tile, limoleum that isnt sleek, or slate.

Get rid of the sand. Especially the calci-sand w/the baby:

homepage.mac.com/exoticdvm/reptile/PhotoAlbum181.html
(WARNING: graphic dissection photos of a 3 year old leo w/sand impaction. Very cool and informative but not for weenies or those that can't deal)

Put them on paper towel or slate tiling.

Don't feed Giant Mealies...especially to young leos. All the meal worm myths are false, except that Giant Mealworms CAN cause impaction in young leos. I've seen a couple cases myself. So sad.

And, as Blueleo said, they are hormone treated which renders them inable to breed. I did not know this until a few months ago and did once feed them to my adults/large sub-adults for one feeding...then I got freaked out just looking and the nasty, hormon-ridden hunks of chiton!

Put humid hides in. Tupperware works best to maintain humidity.
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Too many Leos
1.0 feline "Spot"
0.1 canine "Tika"

Heres a link, read the first paragraph. http://www.superwormfarm.com/faq.htm