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View Full Version : Advice on helping Female Leopard Gecko gain weight


Feliper10284
04-22-20, 03:18 PM
A bit of a back story (and sorry for long post): three months ago I got three female leopard geckos from a woman who claimed that her kids were no longer taking care of them. They had owned two for two years (making them adults) but they were really small for adults, not necessarily in fat but more so in length and general size. I got them, and they started filling up and gaining weight around their tails and body, however even when they looked fuller they still only weighed about 40 grams. The third one was a baby, which they claimed to be a female. A couple of weeks ago I started noticing the signs of one of them being pregnant. Turns out the baby was male and bred with the small female. She lost appetite and and started developing her eggs and started to lose weight around her tail and body (which I realize is a bit normal for pregnant females). She laid the eggs last night and it is now very apparent that she lost a lot of weight. However she still won’t eat which is worrying me. I never intended to breed these two females because of their size (and they are now separated from the male) but what advice do you guys have as far as stimulating her appetite and helping her gain weight again. Thank you for any insight you guys may have!
TL;DR: Stunted female accidentally became pregnant, lost a lot of weight, need advice on getting her weight back up.

Veronica
04-24-20, 06:45 AM
Feed her a variety of healthy feeders. Sometimes people will say to feed waxworms because they are high in fat, but that's like feeding a sick person candy to help them gain weight. It's best to stick with dubia and crickets as staples, and mealworms, superworms, etc as secondary feeders.

Also, I recommend separating the females as well, especially since one of them isn't well. Plus, females can and will easily kill or injure each other. (If you have reddit, the leopardgeckos subreddit has plenty of photos of what happens) Even a tub setup will be fine as long as you do it properly.