Obese Geckos

[Heckingeck97]

Fat geckos are healthy geckos, so they say, but how fat is too fat?

Hello! New to the Forum. I've had geckos for 7 years now. One of them, my first was a petco gecko I adopted from a lady and he's struggled to survive all seven years despite doctor's visits and antibiotics. He had MTB, deals with oral infections, has long episodes of refusing to eat and therefore cant keep on weight. He's my absolute baby and has developed an amazing trust with me over the years, which have been very hard. Three years ago I adopted 2 females from a friend who fed them EVERYDAY, and now I only feed them once to twice a week but they are very picky eaters and for the most part just want waxworms :/ despite their new feeding schedule, I feel like their weight might still be a problem and was wondering if you can tell me if they are obese and possible solutions.

Thanks!

 

[acpart]

The first one looks pretty hefty (though I've owned geckos with that body type) and the second one looks about average. The good news is that they have enough weight on them for you to be able to get them off waxworks. I recommend you pick a few other feeders (crickets, super worms, dubia roaches come to mind) and stop the waxworms. If they don't eat for awhile they have plenty of body resources. Eventually they should come around to more reasonable feeders. The waxworms are pretty fatty.

Aliza

 

[Heckingeck97]

Good to know, thank you! I keep waxworms around more often because I have a male gecko that's been in crit condition for 4 years that I feed primarily on those (if he eats) and a critical care formula. But once I introduced the waxworms to the girls a temporary feeder since my local pet store was out of mealworms, they got that waxworm addiction. Glad I can break them off of them, thanks again for the advice.