Feeding

[skillz]

Hi again, I was just wondering how often you should feed you leo. I've read alot of different care sheets and they all say differert things. And also should meal worms be the main food item not crickets..thanks

[cpt_retic]

every other day for small ones and every three days for bigger geckos. I use crickets mostly with cal. dust . meal worms are the better way to go if you have them

[Tim and Julie B]

I feed all my leos every other day, but provide a constant supply of meal worms in a dish. The main staples can be king worms, meal worms, crickets, butter worms or silk worms. You should probably try to alternate them as much as possible because each has different food values. In the wild they hunt every night, perhaps sometimes they will find food and sometimes not.:D I hand feed every single one of mine (yes I am obsessed), and with over 60 breeders at the moment (just thinned it) I have come to know who will eat and when. Just watch your leo well and will know when is best for it to eat as well as how often.:D

Julie

[skillz]

I'm curious why you have a constant supply of meal worms. Won't they just eat those when there hungry and not eat when you fed them. And how many times a day do you feed em..thanks for your help :)

[ChristinaM]

I feed mine every night. I dump a bunch of dusted mealies in a bowl and put it in the enclosure. Sometimes there are some left, sometimes there are none left. :)

[skillz]

Do you have to feed them at night because there noctournal?

[maiden_canada]

Originally posted by skillz
Do you have to feed them at night because there noctournal?

no

[Tim and Julie B]

You can feed your leos whenever you like, day or night. For the most part each leo is different. I leave a constant supply of mealies in because some leos don't like to eat when food is first offered. I feed those who ae hungry once every day and if they feel like a midnight snack of mealies then they just help themselves. I have a couple of females who will eat kingworms endlessly. One has chomped down a whopping 16. So I give those "bigger" appetite leos a set number of kings (usually 6-7) and then they can snack on mealies until satisfied. Of course you could just provide an always full dish of mealies, so long as you provide fresh water at all times and add other insects on a regular basis.

[skillz]

can you just let the crickets roam? or feed them one at a time?

[Tim and Julie B]

For crickets you just dust them with vitamins and put them in the cage. It's a good idea not to leave them roaming around though. Let your geckos eat until they no longer want any more, then remove the extras. Otherwise they could nibble on gecko toes and tails while they sleep, or lay eggs in various places which when they hatch are tiny enough to stress your leos because they cannot see them to eat them.

Julie

[bob_thesnowman]

Julie,lol,i was wondering if you hand fed them!!!most seem more then willing to eat from my hand

[bob_thesnowman]

one and about butterworms being a constant food staple,i'd hafta disagree i've found most often if you give them any more then 2-3 per feeding they tend not to digest so well,lol...kinda gross

[Icefire]

look at your temp maybe bob, butter are like silks but with more calcium , I had adult gecko eating 30-50 mealworms and digesting
all them even if mealy are harder to diggest :)
butter are soft like wax worms so not sooo hard to diggest amo