Baby leopard gecko not eating! Help?!

[Pixxie]

My sister in law leaves her snakes and geckos with me and my husband because her boyfriend doesn't want them in their apartment. She comes over on the weekends and some other days, but until then its me and my husband's responsibility to care for her pets, which we don't mind.

But for 3 days her smallest baby gecko has not been accepting food, what should we do? What could be wrong?

We keep it in a 10"x18"x12" terrarium with one hide, a fake plant which could also serve as a hide, and a water dish. It's enclosure is shared with another baby gecko who is a bit bigger. We use day and night time heat lamps for them and also have a space heater in the room for the other critters. We normally keep the room around 80-83 degrees F. Peat moss is the substrate.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Entomancer]

First things first...

Leos need to have a good temperature gradient; this means that they need one end of the tank to be 90 degrees or so, and the other end to be around 70. The same thing goes for the other reptiles.

Reptiles aren't supposed to be hot all the time; they need to be able to choose between warm and cool areas based on what they need; they need heat to help digest food and fight off illness (amongst other things) but they also need to be able to cool down.

Cranking up a space heater to 80 isn't a good idea, unless the other animals do not have heating pads of their own. And if they do, a heat lamp + space heater could wind up getting dangerously hot for a reptile.

This might be why your leo won't eat; it might be heat stressed. The other thing is that I wouldn't put them on peat moss. Most people keep baby Leopard Geckos on lizard carpet or newspaper/paper towel because they sometimes ingest sand/moss/etc. by accident when trying to catch food; if the baby leopard gecko that isn't eating has eaten some moss by mistake, that might be why. If so, this could be a serious problem, because it could be unable to pass the moss (frogs have a tough time with this if they swallow moss, I don't know how a gecko would do) and become impacted, which could easily kill it.

Anyway, I think it's either the heat or the moss. Try taking away the space heater and just use heating devices/implements for each animal and that might help; Leopard geckos prefer to have a cool spot in their tank of around 73-75 degrees for proper thermoregulation.

 

[bchbum11]

LordRaiden pretty much summed up environmental possibilities. Just to add one more thing. How old/big are they? You said its cagemate was larger. Geckos will also stop feeding when feeling stressed, and having a larger and more dominant animal in the same cage could definitely cause stress for the subordinate animal. This would go double for 2 males housed together if they were a bit older and coming into maturity. If possible, try seperating the 2 for a couple days, then resume feeding for the one that's not eating.