cassicat4
New member
My leo Suma is a big girl. She's approximately 1.5 years old and weighs 84g.
She has huge bubbles/fat pockets/calcium pockets/goobs/whatever you want to call them - behind her front legs, and she also has smaller ones in front of her front legs.
I have no idea why she has them, but from everything I have read, I suspect it's due to excess protein, however, she is only fed every second day, primarily crickets (offered a few mealworms once every 2-3 weeks), and only eats about 5crickets at a sitting.
Her prey is dusted once a week with calcium with D3 and Reptivite. She also has a bowl of plain calcium in her enclosure.
She is in a 20 gallon enclosure, but is constantly moving around, exploring, following me when I'm walking around, etc. She's a very curious gecko.
I take her out for "exercise" on feeding days, where I let her run around on my bed or the floor for about 20-30 minutes. She's very active, and I find her armpit bubbles decrease in size after a bit of running around.
I've been contemplating moving her up to a 25-30 gallon enclosure as I feel she would benefit from the extra space.
I will post a couple pictures tonight (I can't access online photo albums from work). In your opinions, based on what I've reported, do you feel she's overweight? And if so, what should I do about it? I'm hesitant on feeding her every 3rd day as I feel she would get too hungry. I'm also not sure that I should reduce her intake to less than 5 crickets every second day. I do like the idea of giving her more space to hunt and explore though.
Another thing to note - she gained about 25g in a period of just a couple months. For the longest time - from about Feb to July, she held constant at 57-60g. Her tail was a bit (in my opinion) on the small side, even though I was feeding her crickets, mealworms, and butterworms in an attempt to fill her up. Starting in August I believe is when she started gaining weight and gaining it fast. I stopped feeding butterworms, and cut back significantly on the mealworms.
I'm only concerned because I know obesity in people and other animals can contribute to many health problems, and I don't want that for my gecko.
Thanks for any input.
She has huge bubbles/fat pockets/calcium pockets/goobs/whatever you want to call them - behind her front legs, and she also has smaller ones in front of her front legs.
I have no idea why she has them, but from everything I have read, I suspect it's due to excess protein, however, she is only fed every second day, primarily crickets (offered a few mealworms once every 2-3 weeks), and only eats about 5crickets at a sitting.
Her prey is dusted once a week with calcium with D3 and Reptivite. She also has a bowl of plain calcium in her enclosure.
She is in a 20 gallon enclosure, but is constantly moving around, exploring, following me when I'm walking around, etc. She's a very curious gecko.
I take her out for "exercise" on feeding days, where I let her run around on my bed or the floor for about 20-30 minutes. She's very active, and I find her armpit bubbles decrease in size after a bit of running around.
I've been contemplating moving her up to a 25-30 gallon enclosure as I feel she would benefit from the extra space.
I will post a couple pictures tonight (I can't access online photo albums from work). In your opinions, based on what I've reported, do you feel she's overweight? And if so, what should I do about it? I'm hesitant on feeding her every 3rd day as I feel she would get too hungry. I'm also not sure that I should reduce her intake to less than 5 crickets every second day. I do like the idea of giving her more space to hunt and explore though.
Another thing to note - she gained about 25g in a period of just a couple months. For the longest time - from about Feb to July, she held constant at 57-60g. Her tail was a bit (in my opinion) on the small side, even though I was feeding her crickets, mealworms, and butterworms in an attempt to fill her up. Starting in August I believe is when she started gaining weight and gaining it fast. I stopped feeding butterworms, and cut back significantly on the mealworms.
I'm only concerned because I know obesity in people and other animals can contribute to many health problems, and I don't want that for my gecko.
Thanks for any input.
I only had the UVB on her for I'd say less than a month...I'd been monitoring her behavior quite a bit during that time, and the UVB seemed to bother her...she would spend a lot of time with her eyes half closed, and hiding in her one cool cave rather than sprawled out on the floor where she can see everything. I switched to an EnergySaver 9W incandescent light and that seemed much better for her. Since it's gotten cooler, I've recently switched out that light with a 50W daylight bulb to provide additional heat during the day (but no light at night as the temps don't go below 70F). So she's just being supplemented with D3, not UVB as well.
