Feeding questions

[Pixie]

I've read up a lot on feeding leopard geckos but still have a few questions left. Information varies from one place to another so I thought I'd ask people who have personal experience to help me out.

Quantity: How many food items should I be offering my young Lilo per day? I am mainly feeding her mealworms and will be supplementing with pinkies, waxworms and sometimes crickets.

Vitamins: I bought some vitamins to dust her food with before I give them to her. Is this sufficient? Should I get some calcium too? If so, how do I use it? Leave some in a dish for her to take when she needs? Would I be mixing the calcium with some vitamins?

Thanks :)
Pixie

[Rebecca]

You should keep a small dish of calcium in her home at all times, thats what I do. I don't use the calcium to dust with all the time, only once in a while, mainly because they have their dish if they need it. I feed my geckos every night. Now I've never really counted how meny mealies I give them I just put them in the dish and in the morning I take the uneatten ones out. Hope this helps.

[jakejeff]

just becareful giving your "young lilo" pinkies she may be to small to eat a pinky also every leo eats different amounts and every leo eats diff amounts at diff times a year. my leo now is eating 4-5 crickets a day in the summer she will eat 10 or so. The best way I have found to feed her is put crickets/mealies in and after about 15 to 30 mins collect the remaining crickets and see how many she ate. if she eats them all then add 1 more till she leaves one that is how i do it??

[Linds]

I agree with jakejeff. Your young lilo may not be able to take down a pinky quite yet. Even some of my adults won't eat something the size of a day old pinky.
Vitamins aren't necessary as long as your feeders are properly gutloaded. However a good cal/d3 supplement is very important. I just leave some in a dish and don't bother with dusting the bugs. Hope this helped :)

[Pixie]

Thanks for the responses :)

Lilo ended up eating a pinky and seems to have digested it alright, she ate it 2 days ago and did a big poop this evening. Other than that she's been eating about 5 mealworms on other evenings and a waxworm when offered.

Now everywhere I've read up it says to feed waxworms sparingly, but what does that mean exactly?! 1-2 a week, 3-4 a week?

I'll keep dusting with vitamins the worms I give her until I have a good gutload recipe for my worms and I'll get her a dish with some calcium tomorrow.

Thanks for your help :D

Pixie

[Ryan]

I'd feed Waxies very sparingly as they are very high in fat, they are best left for adults that are ready to breed. Crickets, mealies, and a pinkie every once in a while will provide a good variety. I have also had the problem with a couple of my first leos only wanting wax worms after they tried them a few times. Trust me you don't want to be spending around $0.20 per wax worm and feeding them exclusively to a leo, not very healthy for the leo and very expensive.

As for calcium I use repti-cal with d3 and I dust every other day, I just like to see my leos eating the dusted crickets so I know that they are getting it. They never seem to want to eat the calcium from a dish while I am around.