emergency on mealworms

[lanceinhispance]

we had a vet come into our school and say that we needed to wean the lepard geckoes off of mealworms. and then spring break came and i fed the 2 leos mostly mealworms and they got huge. now after 2 weeks she says we're not feeding them mealworms any more and they have lost weight and have bad sheds and they look horrible. i am trying to tell her we need to get mealworms and she says no. my question is can leos live off of mealworms their entire life and if not should they be eating mealworms when they're 4 inches long and about 6 months or so?

Please respond! we need this info quickly and from people like vets that have been learning about these there entire life.

[Dani33]

I have heard of people doing so. Personally, I like to feed a varied diet, crickets, meal worms, super worms, silkworms, butters, wax worms etc. If all they were fed were meal worms and than to just cut them off isn't good imo. They may have a hard time taking to other prey. Tell them to give them some variation.

The problems with meal worms is that their exoskeleton contains a lot of chitin which is difficult for lots of critters to digest. Give variation, that's the best.

Edit: I am by no means a vet. Just my opinions on keeping them. Sorry, I must have skipped over that part :)

[lanceinhispance]

that's ok if your not a vet because you own them and the librarian has never owned a pet in her life and she tells me im overreacting and then a leo dies and than a vet tells her everything ive been telling he. exept the cricket thing. but she wants the leos to eat just crickets their entire life.

[Matt.B]

Umm well I have been feeding my leos a diet consisting of 90% mealworms and I have an 70+ g female so it is a good staple. Unless you have a near death leo then mealworms are a good source of food.
Matt

[hobotramp]

Mine have mealies as a staple and for variety they get crix, Kings, silks, and butters. All of mine are healthy and I haven't had any issues with the mealies. Why did your vet say they were no good for your leo?

[DragnDrop]

Ron Tremper feeds his leos almost exclusively on mealworms. He's admitted to it many times on the GGA list, in interviews and I believe it is (or at least used to be) mentioned on his website.

The world record holding oldest leo died at the age of 30+, and was fed mealworms almost all the time.

Sounds like good enough info to feed mealies.

[drewlowe]

Mealies can be fed their whole life as long as the mealies are properly gutloaded before being eaten. They say feeding a strick mealie diet leads to some heath problems, but i believe the key is proper gutloading for insects. The chitlen is hard for young or "weak" leos (not going to include other species because each is different) to completly digest so they are not getting all of the needed nutrients out of the "caseing" of the mealie.

Now in all honesty variety is the best route to go, but they can live out a full life on properly gutloaded mealies. Plus you can set up mealie bins and they are SOOOO easy to do, so you would know the quality of the mealies.

I feed mealies as the majority of my leos diet, i'll switch it up every now again with some crix, silkies, and butters.

Jamie

Jamie

[HeatherK]

Mine loved his crickets as a hatchling, then once moved to mealies, didn't see the point of having to chase his food around the enclosure :p Eventually seemed to tire of the mealies and would only accept superworms and silkworms. Now he's off of the supers and only wants mealies, wasn't crazy about the silkworms last time either :rolleyes:

At least he's getting variety... :p

[lanceinhispance]

i have know clue that she even said that they don't need mealies but the librarian said that she did.

[lanceinhispance]

i am happy that you guys/girls posted and thank you for the information and hopefully if i show this to the assistant librarian ( the on that buys all the stuff ) maybe she can help or give some assistance. Thanx
Mike

[drewlowe]

Do you know the vets reasoning for telling her to wean them off of mealies. I could understand if it was wax worms but not mealies.

[lanceinhispance]

she said giving mealies to leos was like giving ice cream to a kid every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. which i seriously doubt. i don't mean to kinda speak down about the vet because everything she said was correct about the other info on the leos and the gerbils.

[drewlowe]

Like i said i could understand it if it was WAX WORMS those things are like candy, very fattening. Mealies are not like that they are just harder to break down because of the chitlen in the exoskeleton.

[striko_69]

hello
I fed most of my geckos on a complete diet of mealworms, and my females were fine, so were their babies. I do believe that you have to however gutload the mealworms on the correct diet before feeding to your leo. My males got so tired of eating the mealworms after i had fed them 1 or 2 superworms, they just stopped eating the mealworms, so i fed them on a great range of superworms and those soft white crickets, and they got the occasional treat of having a waxworm. This was only for my males though, and the one was a monster eating giant! Anyway, my females were on mealworms which were kept in bran, and i added carrot, potato, and apple. She ate those damned mealworms til i had to sell all of mine (moving from S.A. to england). Anyways later and i hope that helped

YOU CAN FEED THEM ON MEALWORMS