Hello! My leopard gecko Lucy is about 3 years old. She recently had a case of mouth rot that was cleared up with antibiotic shots. I was tasked with giving her the shots myself which was very stressful for both me and Lucy. Towards the end of the treatment, she actually pooped on me from stress and bit me. She has absolutely never bit me, she’s very mellow and doesn’t mind being handled and out of the tank. We finished up treatment and she was only eating wax worms and mealworms, I tried adding in some hornworms because they’re also soft for her mouth like wax worms but she didn’t really take to them. We took her back to the vet because she barely eats now, the mouth rot has cleared up so we’re feeding her carnivore care and were given something just to keep her mouth clean. Unfortunately, she is now very stressed out at the thought of eating. She was so tentative when she had mouth rot and I think she still has the fear that it will hurt. She starts to glass climb when I put worms in her cage, she doesn’t glass climb at any other time. I stopped giving her wax worms to get her to eat something better, but she has 0 interest in any food. She seems afraid of and stressed by food. Any suggestions to getting that trust back or will this just be a very slow process of offering new feeders until she trusts it again?
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Stressed when fed
- Thread starter Lucylou
- Start date
In the very beginning of my gecko keeping (17 years ago) my first gecko stopped eating and needed to be wormed. After the medication was finished, she still didn't want to eat (I don't think she was as traumatized as your gecko). I started putting her in a smaller enclosure with some crickets (which is what I was feeding her) with the lights dim and just leaving her alone. Eventually she did start to eat. I worry sometimes that geckos on carnivore care can get used to that and have a hard time switching back to solid food. How are you giving her the Carnivore care? See if you can rub some one her lips (if you're not already doing that) and then squish up a mealworm and rub that on her lips. If you can get her to eat squished up live food (obviously by that point it won't be live anymore), then maybe she'll be able to make the transition.
Aliza
Aliza
She’s actually not even that interested in the carnivore care either. In the beginning she would lick it off a syringe, now we’ve been able to just squirt it quickly into her mouth so she has something in her. She eyes the worms in her cage but then shys away. I will try a smaller enclosure with the lights dimmed!