Blind Leo Refusing to eat

[AmazonLynx]

Hey there! I have exhausted local resources and am trying this fourm for help.

Basically I rescued this adult female leo who is mostly blind. She can see shadows, but barely. She is a struggle to feed, because when she lunges at her food, she over strikes and usually latches onto my hand or tong a good inch away from the actual food. She would catch maybe one cricket before loosing interest. She refuses all worms.

So I tried bucket feeding. Placed Toph(my gecko) into a 5 gal yellow bucket with crickets and Dubai roaches, at first she would catch a couple and I would hand feed her the rest. She was eating atleast 3 crix a day and was putting on weight well. (See pic for reference).

But about 3 weeks ago she started refusing to eat in the bucket, refusing to hunt and refusing to be hand fed. So I went back to hand feeding in her enclosure. She will strike a dozen times, miss every time, then loose interest and refuse to be near the food.

I am on the verge of force feeding her as her tail is starting to get thin again. Shes by no means skinny but I dont want to see her like that again. Because she's solid white, I dont believe she is in shed but its hard to tell.

Recently I have tried small meal worms in a bowl in her cage, showed them to her and she didn't notice them. Tryed putting them in her hide wirh her for an hour. Didn't touch them.

I plan on bringing a frozen pinky home with me and trying that tonight. Otherwise does anyone have any suggestions? I hate to force feed but she hasn't eaten more than 3 crickets in the last 3 weeks. She's drinking and exploring at night so I know she's not too weak, but I dont want her to get to that point.


The pic is not her cage, when I'm watching TV I'll put her in a shallow tub with a warm water bottle and she will chill with me.

 

[acpart]

She looks like a pretty well-proportioned leopard gecko. Many geckos at this time of the year aren't eating much. Sometimes when we take them out and put them somewhere else to eat, they're a little freaked out about being in a new place and don't eat. You could try using a piece of cardboard or plexiglass to temporarily block off a portion of her cage during feeding time so there isn't so much room for the feeders to move around. How have you figured out how much she can see? She's an albino, so low light is going to be best for her in general. Most of my geckos aren't eating much right now.

Aliza

 

[AmazonLynx]

She looks like a pretty well-proportioned leopard gecko. Many geckos at this time of the year aren't eating much. Sometimes when we take them out and put them somewhere else to eat, they're a little freaked out about being in a new place and don't eat. You could try using a piece of cardboard or plexiglass to temporarily block off a portion of her cage during feeding time so there isn't so much room for the feeders to move around. How have you figured out how much she can see? She's an albino, so low light is going to be best for her in general. Most of my geckos aren't eating much right now.

Aliza

For one she has no pupils, her eyes are are soft solid red. Then when she's under light, she has no response to anything moving around her. If something touches her face she will turn away or turn toward it and try to eat. She's bitten me a few times this way. When the lights are off, she's seems able to see shadows because she will approch me if I'm standing I front of the tank with a light behind me, but she does the same thing with my dog and my cat if they are looking inside the tank.

And that pic is a few months old. I can get more recent ones.

 

[AmazonLynx]

She still has good weight, but her tail is skinnier than before.

Both of her eyes look like that.

 

[acpart]

She does have pupils, but she's an eclipse albino gecko, which means that her eyes are solid red (non albino eclipses have solid black eyes). The pupils are the same color as the rest of the eye. There's a good chance that she sees fine and is most comfortable in low light. Many geckos aren't eating too much at this time of year as I mentioned before. I recommend that you try creating a smaller feeding area in the cage, as I described above, keep offering and try not to worry if she doesn't eat for awhile.

Aliza

 

[AmazonLynx]

She does have pupils, but she's an eclipse albino gecko, which means that her eyes are solid red (non albino eclipses have solid black eyes). The pupils are the same color as the rest of the eye. There's a good chance that she sees fine and is most comfortable in low light. Many geckos aren't eating too much at this time of year as I mentioned before. I recommend that you try creating a smaller feeding area in the cage, as I described above, keep offering and try not to worry if she doesn't eat for awhile.

Aliza

Most comfortable in low light. So should I switch her white bulb to a red one? Then her UVB, should I remove that? And she randomly strikes at the air which is another reason I believe she is blind. I will have the cricket right infront of her nose, and she lunges to the left like its 3 inches away. Or sometimes ill put in right infront of her and she will strike vertically into the air.

 

[acpart]

I would recommend using an under tank heater if you're not already doing that and, unless she's kept in a room where there's no ambient light, letting the ambient light in the room signal day vs. night to her. Some geckos that I've owned seem to see fine, but are very uncoordinated hunters. Some of them I've been hand feeding for years.

Aliza

 

[AmazonLynx]

I would recommend using an under tank heater if you're not already doing that and, unless she's kept in a room where there's no ambient light, letting the ambient light in the room signal day vs. night to her. Some geckos that I've owned seem to see fine, but are very uncoordinated hunters. Some of them I've been hand feeding for years.

Aliza

Okay I can attach her tank heater, but even hand feeding she misses the cricket every time. Has bitten me more times than I can count cause she just misses. It will touch her face, she will strike in the general direction, and bite my finger or the tong. Or she misses entirely. When its just sitting infront of her, its like she can hear it and looks in the general direction. Then just strikes randomly.

It's not for lack of appetite, shes very interested in eating. She just can't seem to locate the food even when right in front of her.

I fed her a pinky last night cause she hadn't eaten in about a week, I held it up infront of her hide and I heard her audibly smack the roof of the hide twice. Before she lunged out of her hide upside down... I don't know how she managed that. Ultimately she did eat it, but it took several trys.

 

[acpart]

Sorry you're having such a hard time. I have a gecko like this in some ways. I know she can see, and when I hand feed her by handing her the feeder while she's standing in the cage, she often misses and gets my finger instead. I have the most luck with super worms because they're big and harder to miss. I get my best results by holding her and poking the feeder at her mouth. This way, I can control her strike better. If she'll let you hold her, you could try it that way.

Aliza