A customer emailed me in a panic. Their new gecko hadn't eaten in two weeks. Here is what I told them.
Video · 8 min watchWritten by Brian
A customer bought a gecko from me and emailed two weeks after it arrived. It hadn't eaten once. Was it sick? Had I sent them a defective gecko? This is one of the most common questions I get, and the answer is nearly always the same.
First, make sure it really isn't eating
Most of the time, when someone tells me their gecko isn't eating, it is eating and they just can't tell. An almost full-grown crested gecko has a stomach about the size of the tip of my little finger. It takes very little food to fill it. A gecko could eat until it was full every night from a full dish and you would never notice any food missing.
Three ways to check:
- Look for lick marks in the food.
- Offer just a tiny amount one night and see if it's gone the next morning.
- Look for poop. If your gecko poops, your gecko is eating.
If it really isn't eating
If it's a new gecko, do nothing. It is perfectly normal for a gecko in a new home not to eat for several weeks. Some eat straight away. Some don't eat for three weeks because they don't feel comfortable yet.
Why a move puts them off food
Crested geckos are highly scent oriented. They have glands at the vent that lay down a scent trail. In the wild a gecko keeps one comfortable spot where it spends the day. At dusk it goes out to find insects, nectar and fruit, and towards dawn it follows its own scent trail back to that spot.
A gecko that has lived in one cage for six months or a year has its scent all over it. That cage is home. Then it goes into a shipping box, crosses the country, and lands in a brand-new, perfectly clean cage. Its instinct is to follow its scent trail home, and it can't. Many geckos get anxious, and anxious geckos don't eat. Until it has scent-marked the new cage and it smells like home, it may not eat.
What to do
Most geckos start eating within a week of arriving. If yours hasn't, even after a couple of weeks, it's fine.
- Put the cage in a quiet, out-of-the-way corner where kids, pets and the rest of the family won't bother it.
- Don't handle it much.
- Give it time to settle into the new cage.
A healthy gecko will not willingly starve itself to death. It will eat once it has made the new cage its own.