My leopard gecko is approx 7-8 months old and weighs 14grams last I weighed, 2 weeks ago. I’ve just noticed small brown bugs in her vivarium and she’s started dropping weight fairly quickly over the last week. What’s likely to be up? Cleaning out as we speak so what should I be trying to do to get her weight back up?

it’s likely that she’s suffering from depression, as she’s longing to be in her natural environment in the wild

I think the two things are probably unrelated.

The bugs are most likely to have come in on the crickets (or whatever other insects you are feeding), or on any live plants you might have in the vivarium. Also, crickets have a tendency to pump out offspring whenever it’s warm and moist – they can look a little bit like tiny bugs.

Be careful how much you take her in and out for cleaning, it can cause stress, which isn’t going to help with appetite.

When I had a leopard gecko as a youngster, it wasn’t unusual for him to lose weight every now and then, for no apparent reason. The only “link” I could ever find was it seemed to coincide with when he accidentally ate the substrate. What do you have down in the vivarium? She may have eaten some of that and it’s causing a loss of appetite.

ALso, have you tried changing diet? maybe try some mealworms if you don’t already vary the diet.

slimjim – perhaps you’d be more happy if you was in your natural environment too, you ape.

peter – woodchip is the current substrate, and this is the only mass clean for a few weeks, as leopards only tend to poo in one corner it doesnt require weekly clean out. I vary the diet as much as possible. I try to feed him wax worms as a treat once a week and vary between mealworms/crickets/locust most days. So it’s not that he doesn’t ‘like’ 1 particular bug. Frustrating as my 3 beardies never have issues, this is the 2nd time she’s started dropping weight now…

Bradley. Have a look at http://www.rfuk.com very helpful site. Do you prefeed your live food? I feed my crickets on dog food and veg before I feed them to the gecko’s.

Is your gecko called Gordon?

As stated before Bradley, get onto the RFUK forum and ask on there. You will find lots of useful help and advice and do a search as well as the question will have been asked many times before. I’m not a Gecko/Lizard expert so I wouldn’t like to guess. Hope everything goes okay and it’s back to full health soon.