Why is your leopard gecko not eating [5 Reasons + Solutions]

If your leopard gecko is not eating any insects and begins losing weight, it’s important to try and find the source of the issue and fix it as soon as possible. Not to fear! Most often, the issue is very simple, not dangerous, and easy to adjust, assuming your husbandry is all accurate. In this article, I go over the 5 most common reasons I see leopard geckos refuse food and how to solve them.

Why is your leopard gecko not eating?

1. Big Food Size

Leopard geckos are pretty small lizards, so if you try to feed something that’s too big for them to eat they will either choke, try to swallow it or not even attempt to hunt it down.

A good rule for food size is if the bug is wider than in between the gecko’s eyes it’s too big. If the food you try to feed them is wider than this they probably won’t be interested in something that they know they won’t be able to swallow.

I’ve never actually had this problem with my leopard gecko. She always ate whatever I gave her and she always had the exact same excited face.

2. Bored of the same food

I’ve heard that some have the same bugs for their gecko all the time and all of a sudden they stop eating because they get tired of that food or they just don’t like the bug.

This is why it’s good to have a variety of different bugs so they don’t just get tired of the food and they’re always trying something new.

And if they don’t like one food that you try then you just don’t have to feed that one to them and you have all the other ones you bought.

3. Because they are carrying eggs

Now The third reason only applies to females. If you have a female then there is a chance they are carrying eggs. Don’t rely on this as an excuse because this has been the super common reason.

But if you notice that you can actually see the eggs then obviously they’re carrying eggs.

Keep note that the eggs are going to be infertile if they haven’t been bred, but there is a chance they’re fertile if they’ve been bred before.

4. They might be impacted

This is more likely to happen when you have a loose substrate but if you have something like moss that might be what’s causing the impaction.

If you notice that they’re also not leaving stools then that’s another sign that they’re impacted.

If you think that they are then you should get help from a vet.

5. The last reason your leopard gecko not eating is because they are stressed

One of the most common reasons a leopard gecko doesn’t have a good appetite is when they are stressed. If you recently moved them to a new location, clean their tank or have incorrect care then they’re likely to get stressed.

You shouldn’t be worried at all about this one they’re just stressed and they need time to adjust.

Give them about a week or maybe more and they should start eating again.

Now let’s move on to some of the solutions.

Solutions To Get Your Leopard Gecko To Eat (without force!!)

For many people what works is if you have wax worms and you just take off the tip of their head they really like the juice in it for some reason. And I saw a video of Rebecca from the leopard gecko channel, doing this and it worked, really great for her.

I don’t have wax worms at the moment but if I did I would try it but unfortunately, I don’t.

I’d still recommend trying this since it worked for so many people though.

Some leopard geckos are very picky about how they’re fed. You can try feeding them in different ways such as bowl feedings, cup feedings, hand feeding, tweezer feedings, letting them catch the bugs around the tank freely, or putting the bugs in one at a time.

So there are lots of different ways you can do this.

If you’re doing a bowl feeding then you can try using a more shallow dish like a jar lid to feed them because the insects can’t get out of the bowl, but they might not even notice that there’s a bowl there if it’s shallow enough so they feel like they’re eating it freely.

Other Leos don’t care how they’re being fed but it’s more about what they’re being fed. They might not like the type of bug you’re trying to give them so the simplest solution to this is just to try a different food or to add more variety to their diet.

Maybe you’re feeding them crickets but what they actually want to eat is roaches, then you switch their diet to roaches. It might take some experimenting but I think it’s worth it to have a happy gecko in the end.

I hope this article helped. If it didn’t you should do more research on it and then try to figure out what’s going on. I wish you the best of luck with that. I know it’s scary but in most cases, it isn’t a severe problem so you shouldn’t panic too much.

Thanks for reading the article.