I have a question for in the future! Last year when my female leopard gecko was gravid; she went off food. (She was still too young and I had not bred her, she laid eggs on her own. Infertile.) she lost a WHOLE lot of weight. I want to make sure these eggs/babies are healthy! And I want momma to not lose as much weight. She just started ovulating, and I noticed her appetite has decreased. Is there anyway I can feed her while she’s preggo and not eating? “Force feed” so to speak? To make sure she is getting enough vitamins and calcium? I’d just like her to be 100% healthy! Tell me if I’m thinking wrong. Thanks!
Edit: Here’s a pic for funzies, and, btw, she weighs 60 grams now. So she’s a healthy weight…
2 Likes
Unfortunately it’s just the nature of things. It’s very common for them to stop eating before they lay. I would always make sure my gals had that little bit of underarm fat because I knew they would be loosing weight. I’ve only had 2 gals who would eat up until 72 hours of an egg lay… And they were big girls.
There’s a small window of days that they eat between laying cycles. I try to always leave some mealworms and calcium/vits in the dishes for them so they can eat when comfortable. But try to count them out so you know how many are missing.
For my gals that are loosing more or that have been laying a larger number of eggs I will give them a fresh mouse pinky. But this is something that not everyone can handle… So I get it if it’s not something you want to do!
I was only able to get one girl to reliably take frozen thawed pinky mice from tongs. Most need them to wiggle and squeak to get the attention.
You can also try silkworms or waxworms. They’re a bit easier to digest because the lack of chitin, and geckos tend to love the wriggle they do. The downside is typically silkworms can be expensive or hard to find… Waxies are not very nutritious. And then if your gecko gets hooked on them it’s difficult to get them back to regular tough bugs again.
