Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What is the best insect to feed to put some good healthy weight on my leopard geckos? I have been using mealworms and crickets but they are not gaining much weight. They all have plenty of hides and ideal heat. Water at all times. They arent very excited eaters. I give some crickets and they can barely catch them. They dont seem like the sneaky little hunters I used to have. Thanks in advance!

You can pull the back legs off the crickets so they can't move as fast so the gecko's can catch them, make sure you are gut loading the crickets and mealies. pheonix worms are real good for them as well, or you can also feed them wax worms but the wax worms can not be their food staple only a couple times a week to help fatten them up. also make sure to dust their food with calcium and vitamins. GL

Im not really sure what to gut load them with! I have 500 mealworms on the way to keep on supply. All my local pet stores say the main supplier lost all theirs and wont have anymore till July. Ill try the wax worm thing every once in a while. I usually dust them with Rep-Cal Calcium powder

i use flukers cricket food for my mealies. that and some fresh carrot and they will make you leos fat and happy. any kind of dry insect gutload works just fine for mealies though. they eat almost anything.

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That rep cal is not the calcium powder with the D3 in it is it I was told that to much D3 is dangerous for leos...
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Tom
1.2.0 Leopard Gecko (dot, spot, leo)
0.0.1 California King Snake (booboo)
0.1.0 Sulcata Tortoise (tank)
0.0.2 Russian Tortoise (tito and lulu)
0.0.2 Red Ear Sliders (bernie and ernie)
0.0.3 Painted Turtles (larry, curly and moe)
1.0.0 Bearded Dragon (marshmellow)
0.0.1 Savannah Monitor (beef)
1.0.0 Peachfront Conure (kermit)
0.1.0 Australian Shepheard (layla)
2.1.0 Crazy Cats (babe, sabastian, tinkerbell)
0.1.0 Lion Head Rabbit (daisy)
0.1.0 Ferret (jordan)
0.2.0 Guinea Pigs (lilly and petunia)
0.0.1 White Tree Frog (dumpy jr.)
0.0.2 Fire Belly Newts (spork and blaze)
0.0.1 Fire Belly Toad (ferdinan)
0.0.1 Red Spotted Newt ( red)
0.0.2 Bull Frogs (goliath and tubby)
0.0.1 Rainbow Ameive (jack)
0.0.1 Spectacled caiman (wilbert)
0.0.3 Green Anoles
1.0.0 Bahama Anole
0.0.1 Long Tail Grass Lizard
Lots Of Fish

I personally take out some mealies the night before I plan on putting them in the cage and gut load them. I gut load mine with some scraps I have like vegies and fruit I also feed them some scrap meat for protien. If you put ur mealies in a container with a chicken bone with some meat still on it by the next day it is almost clean.

As for dusting I use a mixture of Zoo Med Repti Calcium without D3 and Sticky Tongue Farms Miner-All which does have D3 in it. I also keep a dish on the Repti Calcium in the cage. GL

also, plain oat meal and chicken feed is REALLY good for mealies....

~kin
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~Sober Serpents~
www.freewebs.com/soberserpents
Corns, Creamsicles, A Black Rat, Thayeri, Cal Kings, A Jungle Corn(Just A Pet), A Ball Python, A Bearded dragon, Leopard Geckos, Green Anoles, a Snapping turtle, and a white cheeked mud turtle

Have you tried some pinky mice? It's a good way to fatten them up and it has a lot of calcium and protein.

I have been feeding them a mixture of crickets and waxworms to fatten them up. I fed one of my larger females a fressh born pink amd she ate it right up! Didnt seem to fatten her up much though but she did seem to have more of an appettite after that. I'm still having a problem with my trio of tremper albinos het raptor. They are the pickiest slowest moving leopard geckos I have ever seen. They have no interest in crickets whats so ever. Even if they did I think they would be too slow to catch them lol. I threw in a few wax worms yesterday and two of the three ate abotu 2-3. The other one just licked them. Mealworms they litteraly run from. They wont go anywhere near them. I gut load all my stuff now atleast a day before feeding. I got some gut load from my local pet store and I also hive them some chicken that comes pre cooked in a can and i throw a couple slices of baby carrot in there. Any ideas on the albinos? any reason why they may be moving soo slow. They are all in the EXACT same setup. Thanks again! P.S. The Rep-Cal is the pure calcium type.