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I have an 18 month old Crestie that has been doing fine with crickets and occasional baby foods like peach and apricots, adding calcium occasionally.

About 2 months ago it completely stopped eating crickets and would not eat baby food unless I held it in my hand and let it lick the baby food off a coffee stick. However it did not seem to like the baby food very much either. It would drink but never eat on its own.

It never looked like it was starving but eventually refused to eat the baby food,and began to lose strength.

It shed about 3 weeks ago and would not remove the skin so I had to do it myself.

Last week I tried banana baby food and it seemed to like it and has been eating it and has gradually improved in strength and mobility.

Some behavioral changes include:
- decreasing stickiness on the feet so that it can no longer climb anything.
- the tongue hangs out slightly when eating baby food and remains out for some time afterwards.
- the mouth stays open after eating baby food and stays like that for nearly an hour.
- sometimes after eating too much baby food it cannot swallow it and will shake it out, it had never done this until 2 months ago.
- it no longer licks it's eyes and cannot seem to lick food very efficiently from around it's mouth.

As long as it eats it seems healthy enough but this is no way for the Gecko to live. I am not sure what else to try or what the problem is, any ideas?

Mike

sounds like a calcium crash from inappropriate diet. take it to a vet and get some liquid calcium into him ASAP. you should switch him over to the Crested Gecko Diet if he pulls through. good luck.
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4.1 snakes, 4.3.2 crested geckos, 0.1 gargoyle gecko, 0.0.2 red-eyed tree frogs, 2.0 devon rex cats, 1.0 betta, 0.1 sun conure, 1.0 lovebird

It regularly excretes excess calcium in it's feces. Would it still need liquid calcium?

It probably isn't excess calcium, it sounds like the urates (urine).
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1.1 Super Hypo Tangerine Leopards
1.1 Mack Snow Leopards
0.2 Red Racing Stripe Leopards
0.1.1 Bell Albino Leopards
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1.2 Children

Here's to hoping it isn't too late, but that is most likely MBD or another nutritional deficiency. ASAP to the vet, but at 18 months, and I'm just trying to be realistic here, the chances are slim the gecko will survive. My brother in law took in a Garg with the same symptoms and similar age from poor care from the herp rescue, spent a ton of time hand feeding and caring for the adult and, while its last three months were probably the best in its life, he still didn't make it when we thought he was doing great.

Do you have a care sheet on crested gecko care? Calcium supplementing alone is not enough, trace minerals and a complete diet is what is needed. Crested Gecko Diet is one of the easiest things to feed cresteds and is found in every chain store I've ever been to and is usually what we suggest to everyone. Crickets and all are fine, I feed them gut loaded and dusted to our little ones and once in a while to the adults as stimulus, but it is far from complete nutrition.

My favorite easy to read care sheet is here, please get the gecko to a vet today and everyone will cross their fingers:

http://crestedgecko.com/cg_care.htm
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0.1 Albino Leo Gecko
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