Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi everyone...bought a baby crested at the show in white plains for my daughter.she loves this little guy and we set it up just as i researched.10 gal. with branches,hide spots...etc.shes doing great but i could not get her to eat the cgd at all but she loves the crickets.then i got the idea to spray the crickets(gut loaded of course)with water,put it in a zip lock bag with half a teaspoon of cgd and shake it up. Now the cricket is pasted with the stuff and the crestie gets a mouth full of it when she eats the crickets.After about 4 or 5 feedings like this, i put a shallow bowl with the CGD in her cage and she devoured it. Iam new at this crested gecko thing, but i just thought i would share that with anyone thats having trouble geting their crestie to eat the cgd.

That's pretty cool... I will definately have to try that when I need to again.
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1.0 savannah monitor
0.4 leopard geckos
2.2.5 crested geckos 2 eggs
0.1 common boas (BCI)
1.0 ball python
0.0.1 western hognose
0.1 kenyan sand boa
0.0.1 golden tree frog
0.0.1 fire belly toad
0.0.1 Sulcata tortoise
0.0.1 desert hairy scorpion
0.0.1 texas millipede
1.2 sugar gliders 2 joeys in pouch
0.1 chinchilla
2.0 cats
0.0.1 African Giant Black Millipede
0.0.1 Pac Man frog
10 gallon freshwater
LOTS of roaches

Matt Smith
Exotic-Adventure

That's such a great idea! (I wish I had thought if it)
Have any pictures of your gecko?

Great thought GRVC. thanks for sharing.
A few other tips if I may...
1. Find out from the breeder what the animals were eating. If CGD, keep them on it, if not, you will realize you will need to do a couple of things to get them to eat it
2. Rather than moistening the crickets, I just 'dust' them with the powder first. This gets the cresteds use to the flavor/smell of the diet.
3. I will also dip my finger into the wet mix and dab it on their nose a few times each of the initial feedings until they start eating out of the mix bowl
4. A new mix is available called Gecko MRP from Repashy- made up of the CGD-like base as a part one and as a part 2, a nectar. I find my cresteds will 'run' to this mix... well maybe not run but walk fast
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http://wkern.msspro.com/supremegecko.html

>>3. I will also dip my finger into the wet mix and dab it on their nose a few times each of the initial feedings until they start eating out of the mix bowl

This is teaching them that your finger is food. Granted, a crested bite would be hard pressed to do any actual harm, but still, getting any animal to make the association that your finger is food is a bad habit to get into.
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear

>>3. I will also dip my finger into the wet mix and dab it on their nose a few times each of the initial feedings until they start eating out of the mix bowl

>This is teaching them that your finger is food. Granted, a >crested bite would be hard pressed to do any actual harm, but >still, getting any animal to make the association that your >finger is food is a bad habit to get into.

I can see your point but to my point, they are not eating from my finger, they are eating from the mix spread on their noses smeared on my my finger. And, I only do this a few times so there really shouldn't be any association.
If anything, the gecko should recognize and associate to the new food smell and taste.

Again, I see your point and if allowed to eat from a finger for an extended time, the gecko may start to associate its meal to the finger feeding it.
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http://wkern.msspro.com/supremegecko.html

I hand fed one of my cresteds a little for a few days and although she was licking it off her own nose, she does lick my hand more often now, searching for baby food treats, I guess.

Shake and bake with crested gecko diet on insects is a good ideal. We all do it anyway when feeding insects, though we use the method with calcium powder and multi-vitamins. I never thought of using CGD in the same manner.

I never had problems getting my crested geckos to eat CGD even with ones that weren't already raised on it. But this method I will keep in mind.

I did have a gargoyle gecko that was not eating his gargoyle diet (same ideal as CGD but designed for their needs, made by same company). I talked to the breeder I bought him from and found out she was using a different kind of prepared gargoyle gecko diet, Clarks I beleive it was called. This is a more sweeter fruit based diet designed to go along with live insects. SO I offered this and slowly mixed it up with gargoyle diet. Now he eats the gargoyle diet without problems. Which is good, as I ran out of the free sample the breeder gave me and I don't know where to find the Clark's diet outside of a reptile show LOL.

Crested geckos can definitely associate fingers with food, even if you just use your finger to dab food on their noses. However one way to get around this is just use a Q-tip to dab food on your geckos diet. Don't let the gecko lick the food off the Q-tip though, just in case they pull off the cotton and eat that. However popsicle sticks could be used for that, or simply a plastic spoon.
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PHLdyPayne