Crickets or Meal worms?

[sapphire_moon]

I just read a website care sheet that said you could feed a leo meal worms (with of course the proper veggies included) and you don't have to use crickets.....is this true? And if not could you point me in the direction of a good care sheet?

[Tim and Julie B]

You could use them as a staple food, but always remember to keep a varied diet. Say, mealies every day, with other insects a few times a week in addition to the mealies. Most of my babies get equal amounts of crix and mealies, except for those who refuse one or the other. And always, always dust those bugs! And what do you mean by: "(with of course the proper veggies included)"? Do you mean gut-loading? If so, all your feeder insects should be equally gut-loaded for best results. Hope this helps!

Julie B.

[Big AL]

I know some people that feed Leos mealies almost exclusively. I dont necessarily agree with it because there isnt much nutritional value in them. Crix are a better choice as the main staple with mealies mixed in. Like Julie said keep it varied there are other bugs they like too. I don't think you will get them to eat veggies though.

[Rebecca]

I feed my leo's mealies as a staple and they are all very fat and heathly. You just have to remember to gut-load them well. It's in what you feed the worms. Also leo's don't eat veggies.

[Alicewave]

I do the same as Rebecca, almost exclusively mealies. There's little nutritional value to crickets or mealworms, it's all in the gutload.

[Emily-Fisher]

Mealworms make a better staple diet for leos because they are safer. Most cases of roundworms are from crickets. I try to avoid crickets at all costs and so for variety, my geckos are fed silkworms, waxworms, butterworms, mealworms and properly sized superworms.

[Pookie]

I fed my leos just mealies for a few weeks but i noticed that they don't seem to digest them well and i could see little mealie bodies in their poop. Is this a bad sign? But when i gave them some crickets every other feeding period they seemed fine.

[eyespy]

In my humble opinion, crickets are the better "empty vessel" for gutloading. Mealworms have a calcium to phosphorus ratio of 1:9 and so it's nearly impossible to effectively gutload enough calcium to make up for the high phosphorus hit. In addition, as Pookie notices, the mealworms come in a much tougher shell and many times they are never fully digested so the nutrients you gutload into them just get pooped away. Even freshly shed mealworms still contain much higher levels of chitins and indigestible hardened proteins than crickets do.

I see much higher incidences of either fatty liver disease or failure to thrive syndrome in leos fed mostly mealworms than in ones on mostly crickets.

Roundworms aren't a natural parasite of any insect. If you're getting roundworms from crickets, find a better supplier. Many pet stores don't have strict hygiene policies about careful handwashing in between feeding and handling animals in different cages and so the cricket bins (or any other feeder insect for that matter) become a lovely incubator for any bacteria, virus or parasite any of the bug-eaters might be carrying. How many times have you seen a petshop employee toss a handful of bugs into a cage, and then go back for another handful for a different cage without washing up in between?

Finding a cricket farmer to send you a shipment directly will usually solve that problem.

[Alicewave]

Under tank heating will help aid digestion with mealworms. I've been feeding almost exclusively mealworms for 2 years with none of the above mentioned problems. The only time I noticed a digestive issue in any of my leos was when one of them was on sand. THe problem corrected itself when I removed her from the sand.

[sapphire_moon]

Thank you everyone.......I am doing research for possibly getting a leo in the future....when I do, I will find a breeder from here.....From looking in various (sp?) pet shops I only trust one. And when I get a leo I am going to be in Maine. So I want to buy from a breeder.....from someone on here preferably since I have been at this site tons and respect every herper here for their experience and knowledge............

[eyespy]

Not to knock you here, Alicewave, but 2 years isn't nearly long enough to see diet-related problems show up in a species that can live for 20 years.

It's like human beings on a too-rich diet, the problems usually show up in a person's forties or thereabouts when love handles appear and cholesterol and blood pressure problems show up. A 15 year old can get away with eating a double cheeseburger, fries and a triple thick shake after school every day with no apparent health problems but it catches up to him later on.

Had you said you'd been doing it for 7 or 8 years that's when you usually notice the difference. By then it's too late to do much except minimize the risk of further buildup of fats in the liver.

[Linds]

I rarely feed my leos crickets. They are fed mainly superworms, and occassionally offered silkworms and mealies, and sometimes crickets as well. I just noticed you also said veggies as well? Leos are mainly insectivorous. They also will eat small amount of rodents, and some people will offer fruit baby food and yogurt as a very occassional treat. Leos are not omnivorous like beardies and some other lizards are.

Originally posted by eyespy
How many times have you seen a petshop employee toss a handful of bugs into a cage, and then go back for another handful for a different cage without washing up in between?

No doubt. Sometimes they even take uneaten crickets out of one acge and put them back in the bin for later

[Alicewave]

Eyespy, thanks for the info...but I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing. A gutload high in fiber should minimize the risks you describe, which is why I use primarily wheatgerm (high fiber) plus a well bananced fish food in my gutload. You make up the calcium ratio through dusting. Again, you can feed all the crickets you want but gutload is what's the most important. I have never had a leo poop out undigested mealworm (proper heat will prevent this) and my Leos have grown fatter tails, better underarm "sacs" and are overall healthier and perkier than when I fed crickets in the past. My suspician is that animals you have seen with these problems were not gutloaded properly, and in that case I can see wheree mealworms would cause more problems. I have spoken with enough long term breeders who deal with hundreds of Leos on a daily basis who have been in business many years who feed exclusively mealworms and show that growth rates from day 1 are better. When silkworms become more readily available in my area I plan to feed those as well. There are far too many drawback of crickets and I still have yet to see scientific evidence that they are any better than mealworms (provided proper heat and gutload requirements are met) to be worth the switch. I prefer mealworms because you can actually see when they are gutloaded properly (nice and plump, ungutloaded mealies are flattened out) so I can be sure every mealworm I feed is full of the good important stuff leos need. Mealworms are less stressful on Leos than crickets because they can be fed out of a dish and you don't have to worry about remembering to take them all out after 15 mintutes. I could go on.... you have a point but my point is there are other factors to consider as well.

[eyespy]

Alicewave, I've seen thousands of animals that came from properly gutloaded mealworms and many of the leos we treat come from the big name breeders and their problems started because of the heavy reliance on mealworms being fed in their youth.

The problem with breeders is that they don't tend to keep most of their animals on a long-term enough basis to see the affects of their choices show up. Big, fast-growing animals are statistically much more likely to develop fatty liver disease than animals with slower and steadier growth rates. Artificially keeping a reptile's metabolism running on high through use of underbelly heat means that more inappropriate fats get processed and stored instead of just eliminated undigested and the liver is one of the primary places those fats end up.

The animals who eventually develop fatty liver disease are often larger and plumper than animals who never do, just like people who live on a fast food diet are often quite muscular and healthy-looking in their youth but over the long haul things change. Proper heat may help animals get more out of mealworms, but they still do not carry the nutritional benefits of animals with better quality proteins in their bodies.

You can dust mealworms all you want with vitamins and minerals, but that doesn't help the fact that most of the protein in a mealworm is non-nutritive and the bulk of the calories actually used by a leo come from fat. By providing supplemental heat, you are increasing the amount of fat that your leos can extract from the mealworms. That will make them grow faster and have more energy but that doesn't mean that they will thrive in the long run.

It's just like children on a fast-food diet. A 15 year old boy will grow nice muscles from all the fat and protein in his diet and tends to look healthier than children who are vegetarians, but the odds are great he'll have his first heart attack in his forties should that be a lifelong dietary pattern. The vegetarians will have smaller, less filled out bodies and fewer health problems.

[Colonel SB]

You can feed only mealies or only crickets and your animals will thrive and breed...But I like to offer as much variety as possible it helps to combat captive stagnation(SSP.)