# URGENT! Female Leopard Gecko Wont Stop Laying Eggs!



## ChaosSeeker (Jul 9, 2013)

I rescued a female and male leopard gecko months ago, and was told the female is pregnant. I seperated them as they were both so thin and i didnt want them to intimidate each other for food. They have been seperated for months. Each month roughly, she lays 2 eggs, which look a bit healthy but i have only attempted inccubation with the first lay unsucessfully.

The female is very underweight, and just recently started to look healthy. Then thismorning she lays 2 more eggs and now shes very saggy and skeletal again.

Im feeding her on wax worms and the occational crickets though she shows no interest in chasing them down, with calcium dust.

What do i do!?


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## Athravan (Dec 28, 2006)

Keep up the feeding, keep up the supplementation, keep them separated. She will probably continue to lay eggs this summer - but if you don't put them back together again, it should stop by next season.

Try locusts and cockroaches as well, find something that she loves and hopefully she'll eat more of them. You could even try some of the repashy paste for carnivores which I've used successfully for very underweight reptiles.

Do you have a weight on her by the way, or any photos? 

Long term solution, a vet could perform an operation to remove her ovaries; but in reptiles this is risky & expensive and not done as a routine procedure at all and on an underweight gecko, probably more risk than her laying eggs for the rest of the year.


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## CloudForest (Nov 27, 2013)

_wax worms are fatty and lack nutrition, get her off them straight away_, you don't want to fatten her up, she needs a very nutritious diet, so she gets plenty of protein, minerals and vitamins, not just fat...large amounts of fat in an animals diet reduces their ability to absorb said nutrients - _no more wax worms until she is back to being healthy_, and then only as a treat

make sure every single insect that she eats is properly gut loaded with fresh vegetables every day, and bump up her calcium - and as suggested, separate her from the male

meal worms, dubia roaches, crickets and locusts, try them all, but avoid fatty soft-bodied larva (wax worms don't gut load well either, on top of being fatty)


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## GavinMc (Jan 9, 2013)

CloudForest said:


> _wax worms are fatty and lack nutrition, get her off them straight away_, you don't want to fatten her up


They are not as bad as everyone makes out. 

If she is refusing to chase her prey then buy a good mixture of worms. Try mealworms, morio worms, calci worms, silkworms, butterworms and what ever else you can find and give as mixed a diet as possible. Also try feeding other insects such as locust and roaches, of which there are plenty of species available.

As has already been said makes sure they are well gut loaded and are coated with the correct supplements. Give her a small bowl filled with pure calcium which can be left with her all day. 

You say you dust with calcium is it just pure calcium or is there anything else in it? Are you using multivitamins? Are you using UV light?


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## jools (Apr 4, 2009)

You have had excellent advice. She hopefully won't lay many more eggs now as it's coming to the end of the normal laying season.

It would (IMO) also be worth having a faecal check for parasites done on her - just to make sure she is in the best health she can be.


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## ChaosSeeker (Jul 9, 2013)

Thank you everyone for the adivce, im much less worried now! Im giving her calcium powder, and a little of that electrolite stuff in her water, shes not too impressed by vitimin powder. Ive tried most worms, even moiro worms which scared her as they are HUGE, but thankfully she loved waxworms.

She doesnt have a UV light as she is in the sun light all day where her tank is positioned

What can you feed waxworms to gut load them?

:2thumb:


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## jools (Apr 4, 2009)

She needs to have a source of D3. This can be provided in a calcium / vitamin / mineral supplement such as Nutrobal. Or she could make her own by basking in UVb light. Unfortunately the light from the window will be no use whatsoever - glass will filter out the useful UV wavelengths - both the glass of the window and the glass of her tank. Only a proper UV light source in her enclosure would work and then she might not bask in it.
Unless she has a source of D3 she will not be able to use the calcium you are giving her - disastrous for a gecko in her situation. Try to get s small amount of Nutrobal (or similar) into her.


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## CloudForest (Nov 27, 2013)

get mealworms rather than morio's, yep large morios are to big for all but the largest of Leo's

wax worms live in bee hives in the wild, they will eat starchy foods like grains, but not vegetables, proper gut loading requires fresh veg in order provide reptiles with all the nutrients they need




gavgav04 said:


> They are not as bad as everyone makes out.


for a healthy leo, sure, but not for one which is underweight and malnourished. high fat intake reduces the bioavailability of essential nutrients, and the OP indicated that wax worms where the main component of its diet




jools said:


> She needs to have a source of D3. This can be provided in a calcium / vitamin / mineral supplement such as Nutrobal. Or she could make her own by basking in UVb light. Unfortunately the light from the window will be no use whatsoever - glass will filter out the useful UV wavelengths - both the glass of the window and the glass of her tank. Only a proper UV light source in her enclosure would work and then she might not bask in it.
> Unless she has a source of D3 she will not be able to use the calcium you are giving her - disastrous for a gecko in her situation. Try to get s small amount of Nutrobal (or similar) into her.


plus light from a window = massive risk of over heating the enclosure


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## ChaosSeeker (Jul 9, 2013)

Is there just straight D3 powder as I already have calcium powder.


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## CloudForest (Nov 27, 2013)

ChaosSeeker said:


> Is there just straight D3 powder as I already have calcium powder.


it will come as a Calcium + D3 powder, you don't want a pure D3 powder anyway, overdose on D3 is just as bad as no D3 at all, dust a few crickets a few times a week with the Calcium + D3 powder and you'll be fine


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## ChaosSeeker (Jul 9, 2013)

Here's 3 pictures of her I just took


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## GavinMc (Jan 9, 2013)

Even though "shes not too impressed by vitimin powder" she needs it. Either in the form of something like Vetark's Nutrobal( as has been suggested ) or Repashy's Calcium Plus. If she refuses to eat food with any of those then you will need to get a UVB setup which is quite expensive but in this, potential, case needed. 

She will need one of the above for her body to absorb calcium which she needs more than ever due to her producing eggs. Failure to use either vitamins or UVB will bring some nasty, I'm guessing, surprises.


Although she doesn't look as bad as I though she was going to you do need to find food that she will take other than the wax worms. Using only one feeder is certainly not the best way to go about it. Try some of the insects we have already listed and you should find she will eat a few. 

Also I would personally remove the aspen or what ever that substrate is. Also could you post a photo of the set up? Do you have a water bowl in beside her?


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## ChaosSeeker (Jul 9, 2013)

Is the exoterra multivitamin powder or Arkvits which is nutrobol and something called ace high enough for her vitamin and D3 intake? It says it contains vitamin D3 but i dont know how much she needs.

She does have a water bowl yes, the same size as her feeding dish, and what is wrong with the aspen bedding?


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## CloudForest (Nov 27, 2013)

ChaosSeeker said:


> Is the exoterra multivitamin powder or Arkvits which is nutrobol and something called ace high enough for her vitamin and D3 intake? It says it contains vitamin D3 but i dont know how much she needs.
> 
> She does have a water bowl yes, the same size as her feeding dish, and what is wrong with the aspen bedding?


she doesn't need a lot, a few insects dusted a couple of times a week is fine, its definitely not something she should be having with every meal every day, the bowl of calcium powder which should always be available, should just be plain calcium powder


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## GavinMc (Jan 9, 2013)

ChaosSeeker said:


> Is the exoterra multivitamin powder or Arkvits which is nutrobol and something called ace high enough for her vitamin and D3 intake? It says it contains vitamin D3 but i dont know how much she needs.
> 
> She does have a water bowl yes, the same size as her feeding dish, and what is wrong with the aspen bedding?


I have only ever used nutrobal which I use three days a week, the other four I just use pure calcium. I also use Repashy Calcium Plus which is said to contain everything the gecko needs and is used to dust every single feed. I would certainly recommend it for both quality and ease of use.

I really don't rate it, the impaction risk is pretty high.


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## tryme (Apr 2, 2008)

So has this leo retained sperm? Or are these infertile eggs


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## ChaosSeeker (Jul 9, 2013)

I honestly dont know, not did i know that was possible. She was sold to me as a pregnant female so im assuming the first clutch was fertile, and when the eggs are laid they are full and white but with nothing in them or just a sort of blood drop looking mark inside


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