Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a roughly 2 year old leopard gecko, that hasnt eaten more than 2 or 3 mealworms in that last 4 months. she's not to the point you can see hip bones, but she is losing weight. she rarley opens her eyes either.

Her setup is a 20L with slate tile, multiple hides, and water and calcium bowls, warm side stays a steady 85-86 and the cool side varys a bit but is usually in the low to mid 70's depending on house temp. i've tried to raise the temp and lower it, both for about two week neither had any success.

she still goes to the bathroom, thou alot less often, sheds regularly, and she's still pretty active compared to her normal habits before this. I've tried, mealworms, superworms, wax worms, and crickets, she wont even pay attention to any of it. I've had ones in the past that slowed down eating but never completely stopped. and unfortunally there is no reptile vet in the area.

any help would be great.

What was your geckos diet before this? Supplementation?

What is the thickness of her tail in comparison to her hips?

her diet was mainly superworms, or large meal worms, with the occasional treat of wax worms(maybe once a month) and occasionally crickets. on her food i use sandfire leopard gecko dust, and in her cage a keep a bowl of the sandfire leopard gecko dust mixed with a calcium supplement from rep cal. i know she digs in the stuff but dont know if she actually eats any of it.

her tail is still thicker than her hips, her tail at widest right now is about the diameter of a dime maybe a little less, 4 months ago it was larger than a nickle.

Well I'm new to the forum, and just within the past 2 months have gotten a pair of leo's, but I thought it was important to keep their hot side at 90 degrees.

Also from working with many other lizards for a long time, usually when they keep their eyes closed it is some sort of respiratory/ bacterial infection going on. She will not eat if she can not see( eyes closed) Try some warm baby food in a dropper and put a couple drops on her lips tonight and see if she will lick it.

**** If she has been like this for 3 to 4 months and is not getting better, than maybe you ought to take her to the vet and see whats going on !

Let us know how she makes out, hope she snaps out of it real soon.
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PHEve / Eve

Is her stool mushy or runny? How long did you keep her temps up? What is her light schedual like?
It is winter and it is common for them to slow down to almost stop eating for 1-2 months, I have heard of some that have stopped eating for 2 months during this time of year.Her stool is more of a tattletail of a parasite. If her stool no longer looks like a pellet but is runny or just a pile of mush she may have a parasite and needs a vet.
One thing you can do is increase her light schedual so she has a light on for 13 hours and off for 11 hours this mimics summer time daylight and increase her heat side to 90degrees and in the 80's on the cool side for about a month and see if it helps.

If you have pics of her from before and a current one so we can see how much she has lost and wether it is a normal amount of wieght loss. maybe even one of her stool now.

her stool is one of the things that baffles me, it seems to be solid like it always has. I've has the temp raised going on about 2 weeks now, monday i decided to start using the basking light , i hadnt thought about the extra hours of light at the time, but it seems to be making a small difference in that she is opening her eyes now when you get her attention.

at first i didnt think to much about it, figured it was just a winter slow down but now its been going on a bit to long. i've heard of trying the baby food, but what types do you use?

after doing some calling around i found theres a vet that travels between clinics, that will be in the area tommorrow, so we have a appointment, we'll see what happens.

despite the vet advertising treating reptiles. she obivously knew nothing about herps, when i told her she hadnt eaten for over 3 months she stop short of calling me a liar but told me that was impossable she would have died after a month of not eating. then preceded to tell me that she wasnt eating because i had no uv lighting and that i needed to get rid of the undertank heater(after i explained what it was) and get rid of her tile and get uv lighting and something she can borrow in. in addition to that if she doesnt get better in a week or two she wants to do xrays for impactions from meal worms, depsite the fact she still goes to the bathroom. Only good side of the visit was the conformation of a mouth infection that i noticed before going, she got a shot, and is suppose to get two more. thou i think ill be looking for a new vet, i dont trust a vet treating a animal they know nothing about.