﻿Hey guys and welcome back to my channel, today we are going to be looking at how I managed to
get Diego to lose weight. It’s quite funny because,
often times people are looking at ways to get their geckos to eat and gain weight,
but you’d be surprised how many people struggle to get their overweight reptiles to lose weight,
because reptiles are pretty resilient, and even in times where food is scarce,
they’re good at slowing down their metabolism and retaining fat stores. So yeah, this isn’t
always the easiest thing to pull off, but I did manage to get Diego down from 108g to 98. So,
in today’s video I’m going to tell you how I did it, what and when I fed
him and what signs to look out for if you’re concerned that your gecko may be overweight.
And if you’re here because you think your gecko is overweight,
or you just like leopard gecko content, be sure to boop that like button
as it helps get this video out to more people in need of advice.
So firstly we want to rule out any medical conditions your gecko may have
that might actually be causing it to look quite bloated. These conditions include -
A female gecko carrying fertile eggs. Impaction
Ascites which is a build up of fluid in the abdomen.
If you are concerned about your gecko’s health, please consult an exotic vet.
Next, what causes reptiles to gain too much weight? Well it’s quite simple, in comparison
to the wild they don’t have to expend as much energy therefore they don’t need as much food.
In the wild they would spend a lot of time seeking out food, and hunting it down,
and daily food is certainly not a guarantee for many animals in the wild.
Not only that but we have an array of feeder insects available to us
to feed our geckos, and they aren’t all super healthy. For example wax worms and morio worms
should only be fed occasionally as treats. 1-3 of these worms per feeding should be enough.
Sadly I have seen cases of reptile shops feeding their leopard geckos
bowls of undusted wax worms. I guess this makes the geckos appear healthy to the untrained eye,
because their tails are plump, but really this is an extremely unhealthy diet.
Another thing to consider is is your gecko exposed to the correct temperatures? If it’s
too cold then the gecko isn’t going to be very active, it may not even eat very much,
it could go into a sort of ‘partial brumation’ which you normally only see over winter. So
make sure you have a decent heater and thermostat and your gecko has a basking area of around 90oF.
So four main things to take away from that. Don’t overfeed your gecko.
Don’t feed them too many treats too often. Make them move for their food. Leaving
heaps of worms in a bowl, or tong and hand feeding too much can just make them lazy.
And make sure they’re exposed to the correct temperatures.
I asked over on Instagram if any of you guys had overweight geckos, so I could feature some
images in this video and hopefully also help your gecko lose weight. I thought I might get one or
two replies, but I got quite a few, and I think this goes to show this is quite a common problem.
Bret, who works at a reptile rescue here in the UK sent in these photos of Potter the leopard gecko,
he says that they see so many obese leopard geckos. I can only imagine
that somewhere along the line people have got some major misinformation around feeding, like
free feeding your geckos everyday, as many insects as they can eat in 15 minutes,
even though my geckos could probably devour a whole tub
of wax worms in less than 15 minutes, and that would be terribly unhealthy for them.
Chloe sent in this photo of Bonnie her rescue gecko who was constantly free fed
morio worms by her previous owner.
As well as this email, I did notice quite a few people concerned about their gecko because
sure they did look on the bulkier side, but like Diego they weren’t exactly obese,
but they weighed a lot. I think it’s good to keep in mind that for some geckos 100g is actually
healthy, whereas others 50g mark might be healthy. For example Diego will be 11 this month and since
2017 his average weight has been between 95 and 105 grams. Gizmo, my eldest female leopard gecko
on average is 55-65g, if she was 80grams, sure it’s still lighter than Diego,
but she’d probably be classed as overweight. So you can’t always rely on numbers to tell
you if your gecko is a healthy weight, sometimes you’ve got to observe them.
Does its body look more pear-shaped rather than streamlined? Keep in mind healthy females carrying
eggs may look a little pear-shaped. Their tail looks like it’s about
to burst? [Show healthy tail vs chunky] Does your gecko have a bit of a double chin,
or chubby legs, does it have rolls? Does their belly touch the floor when they walk?
Are they lethargic? Do they have armpit boobs,
I don’t think this is necessarily always related to being overweight because
its where they also store their minerals, but you do sometimes see these decrease a little, or
disappear for a while as the gecko loses weight. Do they struggle to turn around and remove skin
whilst shedding? I know Diego kept leaving a patch of skin around his vent, which I know is a tricky
place to remove skin, but I think sometimes he was struggling to get hold of it due to his size.
Now overweight reptiles may seem cute in memes,
but actually being overweight not only puts stress on their skeletal and muscular systems
but also on their organs, and can lead to fatty liver disease as well as many other illnesses,
so it is important that we get our geckos to maintain a healthy weight.
Diego hit his highest point in August 2021 when he hit 108g, sure it was only 3g above his
healthy range, but I know how hard it can be for geckos to lose weight,
and I didn’t want him to continue gaining.
He did manage to drop to 106g by January 2022, so it was coming down a tad, but he was just looking
a bit on the chunky side, and I wanted him down in the 90s, so starting in January I decided I
was going to make it my mission to get Diego down from that high of 108g to a healthy 98g.
Before I tell you how I did this I did just want to give a shout out to the Patrons and Youtube
Members. I recently made this cool lego wall art where everyone who supports this channel can be
displayed. We have a range of new cool tiers over on Patreon, where if you need my advice,
you can contact me whenever you want. So if you want help, you want to support the channel,
and you want your name up on this wall, then consider becoming a patron or youtube member.
Anyway, back to Diego, so what I did may shock you.
I know people who have only fed their leopard geckos maybe once every two or even three weeks,
and their weight hasn’t budged, but I think this is where you’re going wrong.
So I’m going to list the dates, plus what food I gave Diego since January.
You may be a tad surprised. It wasn’t super restrictive and it wasn’t just one kind of food,
he did have some treats in there too, maybe a tad too many worms to be fair.
On average in January he was fed every 3 days, February every 4 days, and March every 3 days.
I always say to feed your adult geckos every 3-4 days, so that kind of makes sense.
But I feel like what this shows you is you don’t have to completely restrict your geckos diet,
I’m no scientist, and I only have Diego to back me up on this, so take this as you will,
but I feel like if the gecko is only fed once every week or two weeks, then it’s body might
think ‘ah food is scarce, I need to preserve this, I must seeks a cooler area and slow my
metabolic rate down’. Whereas a consistent, or sometimes kind of inconsistent feeding schedule,
you’ll see some times I left it 7 days, where as other times I left it 2 days, will kind of
keeps them on their toes - once again, not a scientist, I could be completely wrong.
But I’d feed him fairly regularly, and decrease the number of insects he got.
For example with crickets and locusts I’d probably recommend 5-8 insects per feeding, 5 being
what you aim for, but 8 being brilliant. In Diego’s case 5 was the max. He used to get
3 morio worms per feeding before, but during this he’d only get 1 or 2.
So I think there’s something to be said about continuing to feed your gecko, so their body
doesn’t think they need to go into survival mode, but just lowering that quantity of food,
and it may help to stick to lower calorie foods - as I said, I probably gave him a
tad too many treats here and there, but how can you resist that little face?
It’d be really interesting to hear if you’ve managed to get your gecko
to lose weight, how did you do it? I know I got an email from Caitlin who
increased the size of her geckos tank, increased the temperature a little, and it took that
and feeding small portions once a week for 2 years, to get her gecko, squib, to lose weight.
So there are definitely multiple ways of doing this. I always love to read
and reply to your comments, so pop one below and I’ll try to get back to you.
But yeah if this video has helped, boop that like button, but thank you for watching and goodbye.