Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok, two quick questions:

1. Is there any way to keep the gecko from walking through its food? I checked in the cage today and it seemed like the gecko was having trouble sticking to the walls. I took him/her out, and I saw some crust on its feet. My guess is he/she walked through the food, which made its feet sticky, then walked through the substrate which stuck to his/her feet, then dried. I washed it off and the gecko seems to be climing around just fine now, but I'm just wondering if there's some way to stop this from happening?

2. How much does the typical crested eat each night? Mine's not fully grown, but it still doesn't seem like he/she eats much. I put in 3/4 a tablespoon of CGD every other day, and I see the gecko eating, but it never seems like any is gone.

Thanks for reading the long post. Here's a picture of the little guy. Or maybe girl. I should be able to tell in a month or two.

Geckos are adventurous little animals, and there isnt too much you can do to keep them from walking through thier food, it just happens

Also, when cresteds are younger they dont eat a very noticable amount of food, but as they get older you will be able to tell,
all of my adult females go through a CGD capfull each every third night. babies, eat so little food its almost impossible to tell when they are eating without seeing it, but they do!

hope this helps

haha not really, if it becomes a regular occurrence, you could try elevating the food dish (petsmart sells little leaf-shaped dishes with a suction cup on them you could set a bottle cap or souffle cup in, or the feeding ledge from pangea), but they still might step in it while eating.

it probably wasn't substrate that was sticking to its feet, what are you using? CGD dries very hard and can glue toes together all on its own. however, you should be careful using anything other than paper towels with youngsters due to impaction risk.
-----
4.1 snakes, 4.3.2 crested geckos, 0.1 gargoyle gecko, 0.0.2 red-eyed tree frogs, 2.0 devon rex cats, 1.0 betta, 0.1 sun conure, 1.0 lovebird

hey,
try using a smaller container so it doesn't hafta get in it to eat.
an animal that size MIGHT eat a 1/4 teaspoon of gcd. stop wasting your money putting so much in there. when it can actually finish that amount you can think about bumping it up, but it won't be for awhile.
good luck , ck

Thanks for the responses. He did it again tonight, but it seems like, he's starting to learn. After he tracked through the dish, he stepped onto his fake stump and started licking the CGD off his feet. He didn't get it all, though, and I ended up having to clean off his feet again. I guess I'll try a smaller food dish, and see how that works.

Warnersister, I'm using EcoEarth as a substrate. I have a lot of it around for my tiger salamander, and it holds humidity pretty well. He's about seven months old, and I think he's past the size where I'd be worried about impaction.

I've been taking a ton of pictures lately, and I'll share one more. It's kind of annoying that kingsnake makes you crop it down before you can post it, though. This picture was really good, but now it's pretty blurry.

you can link to photobucket instead of uploading to the forum.
-----
4.1 snakes, 4.3.2 crested geckos, 0.1 gargoyle gecko, 0.0.2 red-eyed tree frogs, 2.0 devon rex cats, 1.0 betta, 0.1 sun conure, 1.0 lovebird