Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone,

I finally bought a gecko after preparing the cage for a week and getting everything set up! Her name is Lily and she's only about 3 and 1/2 inches long, but she has a big appetite!

Just today she has eaten around 12 of the (very small) crickets! The book I have and a lot of websites I've read say they should only eat like 4-6 a day... is it healthy for her to eat this many in one day?

The crickets are verry, verry small because I didn't want to risk giving her the medium/large ones since they're almost the size of her head. Will she stop eating when she's full or will she eat until she gets sick? She was being fed mealworms (even though they looked dead) at the pet store, so maybe she really likes live prey, but is this healthy for her?

Thanks in advance,
-Mithivh

P.S.
Heres a picture:

Whetever they can eat in 5-10 minutes is usually enough. Just make sure that there are no more crickets left in the cage after they stop eating.

My new gecko is very funny when he's feeding, if I put a cricket in, he'd run after it, lose sight of it, go back into his hide and only wake up when the cricket walks past him! I love the tail wiggling thing when he's stalking! Too cute!
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What does man love more than life,
Fear more than death or mortal strife,
What the poor have, the rich require,
And what contented men desire,
What misers spend, and spendthrifts save,
And all men carry to the grave?

IMHO, that's normal. I have 3 juvi. leos right now(the rest are adults) that have very different eating habits. Xia's(5inches) crickets or mealies don't even hit the ground/bowl before she pounces and tears through about 10 crickets/15 mealies. Aden(4inches) eats about 6 crickets/10 mealies and my newest one
(2 1/2 inches) eats about 5 mealies and is scared of crickets. Good luck with your first gecko, they are addicting!
Becky

Thanks , he/she doesn't seem to like mealies at all at the moment, maybe in time he will, he loves the crickets though, maybe thats what he was fed on at the pet store. They hide behind the mealworm dish though! So he gives up and goes to sleep, I try to coax them out but they spook me a bit with their fast running and jumping! He'll scoff down all of the crickets that I put in (if he can find them!) He's very cute and is settling in quite well, he's in good condition and is developing a nice healthy chubby tail ! I never realised how easy they are to care for, I have already looked up a reptile vet in my area (just incase), so thats good too. I'll keep you updated on his progress

Allie
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What does man love more than life,
Fear more than death or mortal strife,
What the poor have, the rich require,
And what contented men desire,
What misers spend, and spendthrifts save,
And all men carry to the grave?

IMO, babies and juvies and eat as much as they want since they are still growing. I would cut down on the food once they reach adulthood, so they don't get too fat. I hope this help you.

Allie - consider putting your gecko in another container at feeding time. For example, a plastic "shoe box". You can put a paper towel in the bottom so he/she doesn't slip around. Then put two crickets in at a time. This way, the crickets have nowhere to hide (welll, the do sometimes get under the paper towel, but you can supervise and keep them on tip. You could also try offering a small mealworm on tongs, just to diversify. The babies can spend alot of time chasing and using up energy if they aren't catching, so you can also "lame" the crickets by pinching off a leg. My 2006 hatchlings started out slamming down small crickets, but now they prefer worms. Easier to catch I suppose ) My experience is that generally, the babies will stop eating when they are full. But I agree with the other contributor that you should not leave the extra crickets in with your gecko. It will drive her/him crazy crawling around. One note, my adult females will sometimes eat a pinkie mouse which is a nice treat now and then. Have fun!

I baby my gecko too much and take out his furniture during feeding. He ate 2 super worms last night.

If it'll take mealworms you'll be better off in the long run. Crickets are mostly filler and part for part are not as good of a food source as mealworms.

If it'll only eat crickets, just feed it enough so that it quickly eats them all, as extra crickets running around in the enclosure is messy, promotes parasitic infections, and stresses geckos out.

I've been adding 1-2 crickets in at a time, and she's been eating them one after another, so there won't be any left over running around.

I've read from soo many sites that crickets are a good staple diet, and I've raised 4 geckos on them in the past.. so I'm not sure about changing solely to mealworms, although I will probably give her them occasionally.

Lol, mine hates mealies but gobbles down crickets like theres no tommorrow!

Allie
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What does man love more than life,
Fear more than death or mortal strife,
What the poor have, the rich require,
And what contented men desire,
What misers spend, and spendthrifts save,
And all men carry to the grave?

You keep saying this to everybody, and you have your table of nutritional values, but you don't give any values for what geckos eat in the wild, or what's theoretically 'best' for them. Your chart shows that mealworms are higher in fat and lower in protein and calcium than crickets. Just in the abstract, that sounds *worse* to me. Now, I'm not claiming to be the expert, or even that you're necessarily wrong, but I'd like some concrete proof to go with your thusfar unsubstantiated claims before I make any move to change what my geckos eat (almost exclusively crickets, with a waxworm or two once every couple of months as a treat, and they're healthy and above average size). Keep in mind that your chart, without info on what they eat in the wild, is not proof - it's just a collection of numbers. If you can prove that mealworms more closely match what they eat in the wild, you might have a reasonable case. If not, then we have no reason to follow your advice.
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear

Higher in fat and lower in protein by a miniscule amount... But crickets are also a LOT more water, and provide a LOT less overall energy, and probably too much phosphorus (no much leads to leeching of calcium from the bones).

Learn to read a chart and how to interpret data.

>>Higher in fat and lower in protein by a miniscule amount... But crickets are also a LOT more water, and provide a LOT less overall energy, and probably too much phosphorus (no much leads to leeching of calcium from the bones).
>>
>>Learn to read a chart and how to interpret data.

50% protein vs 37% is not miniscule - that's almost 1.5x the protein of mealworms in crickets. 44% fat in crickets vs 60% in mealworms is 1.3x as much fat in mealworms. i don't call that miniscule. 1.9 kcal/gram in crickets vs 2.1 in mealworms is only 10% more energy in mealworms, which is easily explained by their higher fat content (fat is 9 calories/gram whereas protein is 4 calories/gram). given that all this additional energy comes from fat, is it really healthy? you still have provided no data on their natural diet, so these numbers still have no realistic reference point, so none of this proves anything as yet. telling me to learn to interpret a chart really doesn't get us anywhere, as you clearly haven't paid much attention to the numbers in it yourself.
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear