Although spending time with your leopard gecko is enjoyable, you occasionally need to travel without them to relax. But can you leave a leopard gecko alone for a week? This is what we’ll be discussing today. Geckos typically have a one to two-day survival span without assistance. If you are traveling out of town for the weekend, it’s typically okay to leave your pet gecko alone.
A leopard or crested gecko with a full meal may easily survive 2 to 4 days while on vacation, depending on its age. It is crucial to make sure that the following are either provided or automatically controlled before leaving:
- Food
- Water
- Cleaning
- Lighting
- Temperature
- Humidity
- Emergencies
Be at ease. Just scroll down to see more information!
Expecting a Vacation: Can You Leave a Leopard Gecko Alone For a Week?
Leaving your pet lizard might affect your excitement, depending on the conditions. Although you may decrease the burden you’ll experience by using the best and most effective way.
Adult reptiles, such as leopards and crested geckos, may endure going without food for more than 14 days in an enclosure with a water dish if they are required to. Even though this is true, your pet gecko may still find the situation unpleasant. These behaviors might cause your pet to feel undesirable stress. Therefore, regardless of how long you will be gone, you must make prior plans for care to feel secure while you are away.
How long can you leave a leopard gecko on vacation? Generally speaking, most geckos can live without assistance for 1 to 2 days. It’s usually safe to leave your gecko alone if you’re going away for the weekend, but it is always a smart option to keep someone on call in case of a home emergency like a power outage that would affect the geckos. Therefore, before going, you must think about addressing these six concerns.
What Do I Do With My Leopard Gecko When on Holiday?
Manage all the following requirements will ease you in leaving your leopard gecko alone at home:
Food:
How long can a leopard gecko go without food? Adult reptiles, unlike cats and dogs, eat every other day. Food would thus not be an issue while you’re away. Due to fat storage in their tails, many adult leopard geckos can live without food for ten days to two weeks.
Give your reptile, however, a nutritious meal before you leave. It is recommended that you give it what it would consume in 15 minutes. Your pet gecko would be satisfied until you came back.
The other method recommends for babies and juveniles use a solid dish that won’t tip over for mealworms because they have to feed every day. Before you depart, ensure your leopard gecko is well-fed; drop some mealworms in the dish, and it should be good. If it does, putting ten to twenty mealworms or dubia roaches would be sufficient for a weekend vacation.
But be careful – leaving a few crickets might cause your young lizard to lose its tail or get its eyes bit off. The insects may bite the leopard gecko if it is hungry, and if it is severely injured, it may spread infections.
Caution:
Leaving food in the tank is not a wise idea because of the following reasons:
- Your pet leopard gecko might eat too much food from the supply and get an impaction. When a bolus of food obstructs the digestive system, impaction occurs. If untreated, it is extremely painful and potentially fatal.
- The food can get rotten. Live insects might die or get sick. Once exposed to the humidity of the air in the cage, dried insects might begin to mold. When these things take place, the food will have bacteria and fungi on it. This might make your leopard gecko ill if he consumes it.
- Your leopard gecko might get bitten by and injured by live feeder insects. When you go on vacation and leave a few crickets or super worms in your leopard gecko’s aquarium, what will happen? Your young lizard could get bitten while sleeping and lose its tail or get its eyes bit off. These wounds have the potential to become sick and infected.
Water
All leopard geckos, regardless of age or species, require a constant supply of fresh water. A large bowl of water may suffice for the weekend, but this is likely to drown your leopard gecko, particularly the babies. In such a situation, water bottle waterers with a large reservoir and a relatively small bowl are an excellent choice since they will safely keep your lizard hydrated over the weekend.
Cleaning and Maintenance:
If you feel water and food are difficult enough, consider that keeping the tank’s optimal conditions may be even more difficult and require investments. You might want to think about automating the lighting, temperature, or humidity in the tank, depending on your lizard species. However, you must remember to perform a thorough cleaning of the cage before leaving.
Lighting:
Having a regular day/night cycle when you’re away is crucial whether you have a leopard or crested gecko. Make sure your heat lamps are set up with programmable timers so that they may be adjusted to turn on and off in synchronization with the day-night cycle.
If you normally use a heat mat to warm your leopard gecko’s enclosure, make sure to keep it on when you leave. If you want to use a heat lamp in its place or in addition, you will need to turn it off and trust the caregiver to put it back on as necessary.
Alternatively, you might use a smart plug, which enables you to use your smartphone to control the lighting in your enclosure.
Temperature:
Automating the heat source in the enclosure is essential if you have a gecko with specific temperature requirements, like a leopard gecko. As temperature changes outside the container may impact the temperature within, there are several devices that might automate adjustments to your under-tank light source or heat pad.
Your leopard’s basking area will continue to maintain the optimal temperature of 95°F, and maintaining that temperature will make it easier for your pet to regulate its body temperature, metabolize its food, and digest it. You might also have to provide an additional moist hide to allow your lizard to cool down. Sphagnum moss and coco hummus are effective in holding moisture and bringing the temperature down to 75°F.
It is advised to switch on the air conditioning unit of the room where the enclosure is placed if you are traveling during the summer.
Humidity:
It is a good idea to automate your misting process if you have a lizard with particular humidity requirements, such as a leopard gecko. Some devices that are programmable-ready would ensure that the relative humidity level in the enclosure for your leopard gecko is between 30% and 40%. Although misting systems might be costly at first, investing in one could be more advantageous in the long run.
Furthermore, putting additional live plants in the tank helps improve water retention. As a result, relative humidity levels are maintained.
Emergencies:
You’ll never be able to predict when an emergency may arise. For safety, it is advisable to let someone you know check on your pet gecko and take preventative actions if an unexpected home emergency such as a power outage happens or to see if any food or water has spilled in the container.
Giving them detailed instructions on how to monitor the enclosure’s humidity and temperature, top up their water, and make sure they’ve food is the main thing you need to do.
If Going Away for a Long Period:
While leaving your leopard gecko for the weekend might require you to automate the majority, if not all, of its enclosure maintenance, but if you plan to be gone for longer than a week. Can leopard gecko be left alone? No, these measures are insufficient. You must follow the directions mentioned above if this is the first time your lizard has been left unattended. Extended absences are treated in the same way as weekend absences, but with different arrangements.
When you have finished following the above recommendations that apply to you, you might have to ask a favor of someone to take care of reptile husbandry on your behalf. In this situation, you could go for any of the following suggestions:
- Having Someone At home
- Transferring Your Gecko To a Consignee
- Boarding Your gecko In An Animal Facility
- Hiring a Professional Caregiver
- Should you bring your gecko?
Having Someone At home:
Even if the majority of tasks are automated, it is still preferable to have someone physically check your lizard in addition to these automated tasks because certain automation may unexpectedly fail. You don’t want to come home with a sick or dead gecko, do you? Therefore, it would be wise to have someone you can assign your duties to in the meantime, such as a friend or your mother, or any other family member.
Transferring Your Gecko To a Consignee:
If you choose this plan of action, it is preferable to relocate your lizard for at least 3 days so that it can gradually begin to acclimate. Purchasing a critter keeper or16-quart tub with air holes might be essential as transferring its enclosure would be too difficult.
Once the temporary shelter has been built up at the consignee’s place, ensure you fully inform your consignee of all they have to know in case they come to your home. Additionally, you can show him or her how to clearly state some of the points you might need to emphasize.
You do not have to bring the misting system because manually misting and spraying the temporary critter keeper two times a day is more convenient.
Boarding Your gecko In An Animal Facility:
If you don’t have anyone to leave your reptile with and it wouldn’t be required to hire a professional caregiver, you could use the services offered by exotic pet stores. Your leopard gecko may be accepted for boarding in certain pet stores or other facilities for pets in return for a daily fee.
If you don’t want to annoy anyone you know, this method is the easiest to use. Even while the staff handling your small pet are knowledgeable individuals, separation from other reptiles might not always be guaranteed. If you have a tight budget, this procedure can be too costly for the type of care you require.
Hiring a Professional Caregiver
It is preferable to seek a professional caregiver instead of relying on your friend or mother if you’re the owner of a leopard or crested gecko, as well as reptiles with particular requirements or eggs that are ready to hatch. Even though it could be expensive, you can make the arrangements with the caregiver whatever you choose without sacrificing the level of care.
Even if they are professionals, you still need to provide them with the same info you would give to a friend or your mother. You must make further careful preparations because this scenario is different from keeping only one or two healthy pet geckos:
- If you have geckos other leopard or crested ones, you have properly identified the species and their names on the tanks.
- If you have geckos other than leopards and cresteds, you must provide comprehensive instructions on what he needs to do with each species.
- Additionally, you must give written instructions on how to deal with domestic and animal emergencies.
- You need to label food, feeders, and supplements correctly.
- If any of your pets are getting veterinarian care, you must also tell them about veterinary checkups.
For a recommendation, you can first start looking for caregivers in your neighborhood pet stores. If you are unable to locate one in your neighborhood, you might look for similar services on websites.
Should you bring your gecko?
If you were considering bringing your gecko on vacation, get that idea out of your head. Although some people prefer to do this with their pet reptiles, I am also not a strong supporter of this behavior for several reasons, chief among which is the risk of your gecko becoming so stressed that it loses its tail.
Apart from handling issues, live reptiles cannot be carried on public transportation such as trains and airplanes. It’d be wrong to bring your gecko along, as doing so would stress out your pet and put you in danger of facing legal action.
Conclusion:
If the leopard gecko has eaten enough and the habitat conditions are maintained within acceptable standards, leaving it unattended while you are away over the weekend is good. Longer absences must have someone, a friend or a professional, provide the care if they are capable of doing so. Another alternative is to leave your pet gecko in an animal facility, while this can be more convenient but more expensive. Bringing the leopard gecko on the trip is the ultimate option, even though it is never recommended because it might be too stressful for the lizard. This article will surely be helpful for you in regards to knowing about “can you leave a leopard gecko alone for a week?”
FAQs:
Generally speaking, most geckos can live without assistance for one or two days. It’s usually safe to leave your pet gecko alone if you’re going away for the weekend, but it is always a wise idea to keep somebody on call in case of a home emergency like a power outage that would affect the geckos.
A leopard gecko can often go for 2 to 3 days without drinking without any issues. Leopard geckos need water to exist, just like all other living things, although they are native to arid climates.
If you leave mealworms in your pet leopard gecko’s enclosure for them to eat whenever they like, you could consider leaving some food for the mealworms also, so they will have food in their guts when your leopard gecko decides to eat them.
Even so, where did they provide the appropriate food and water for a pet? With consistent water supplies, house lizards may last ten to thirty days without food, depending on the circumstance. They could only preserve without water for a maximum of three days. They would pass away from dehydration before they’d ever experience hunger.
