Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know that this is the last thing peeps want to read a topic on but has anyone ever really thought about it. The acuall Nutritional Value of Feeder Insects.
http://www.angelfire.com/tx/facehugger/insect.html
http://www.grubco.com/Nutritional_Information.cfm

Take the 2 sites in and average the numbers for fairness. Now look at the amount of Calories/Fat that are in mealworms to crickets. This is the same thing as people eating fatty food or healthy food (not saying never eat fatty foods just not as a regular diet). Yeah they are alive and yep they can move around but your gecko will also live with-out a nice heat source and wet box but you wouldnt take them away.

Crickets also have large stomachs compaired to their body size so you can gut-load them full of goodness and make them even better for your geckos instead of giving them fatty foods extremely low in vitamin C and calcuim.

Now ultimatly I dont know what the intake of an average leopard gecko is or should be but low fat diets seem to be the healthy route for most animals. I have a female that will eat all the mealworms I would put in her tank and her cage mate (a male) would never get a chance to eat any of them. They were also feed crickets regularly. I took them to the vet cause the female I though had eggs stuck in her and it turns out after x-rays and a mamagram that she is just over weight. She is not offered mealworms now.

**Everyone should send in a picture with you geckos and say how/what you feed them (add wieghts if you can)

Spooner

P.S. I will be opening a clinic for over weight geckos soon. I feel peeps will take the easy route and just feed them mealworms.

**nothing said should be taken as an experts opinion but instead as the rantings of a crazy person**

reptiles use fat differently then humans. when a human doesn't eat for a while, their body eats the muscle and stores the fat. it's the other way around for leos. i don't know if that would mean fatty foods are good for leos, but it'd make sense to me. also, their have been studies showing that leos feed a strictly mealworm diet are just as healthy as anyother.
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Well sit right down my wicked son
And let me tell you a story
About the boy who fell from glory
And how he was a wicked son

This ain't no holiday
But it always turns out this way
Here I am with my hand

He took his sister from his head
And then painted her on the sheets
And then rolled her up in grass and trees
And they kissed 'till they were dead

This ain't no holiday
But it always turns out this way
Here I am, with my hand

Well sit right down my evil son
And let me tell you a story
About the boy who fell from glory
And how he was a wicked son

This ain't no holiday
But it always turns out this way
Here I am, with my hand

This ain't no holiday
But it always turns out this way
Here I am, with my hand

if you have AIM, IM me at chichandoCONrosa

Was raised on and fed only mealworms...........
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Sam
Gecko Den
Email Me

I did a search and didn't find anything(not saying the info isnt out there). Please give a link to the info.

My problem with your statement is there would be alot of variables with the the times the gecko was living in(technology
available to care for)also if it was a female was she breed for her full life(I heared it was good to give a breeder female mealworms and pinkies to keep weight up)and I am sure there are many others. Also how many people acually recorded with someone the full life of their leopard gecko?

I would hope you would base your animals diet on more then "The longest recorded living Leopard Gecko ate only mealworms"

My point of this thread is for people to put up some facts or findings that leads them to believe what is the healthiest and give resources. Alot would be answered if someone could find the dietary requirements of a leopard gecko.

Spooner

It's actually the longest living leopard geckos that were fed only on mealworms. There wasn't only one leo; there were several. These aren't facts that were pulled off of the Internet either. They're published, recorded, and generally known among herpers because the herp community is pretty close-knit.

One was recorded at a zoo; I think it lived to be 33? It was a male. You should know, btw, that males generally live longer than females. Ron Tremper also had some that lived past 30. He is one of the top breeders who feeds his leos exclusively on mealworms. I recommend you buy The Leopard Gecko manual. It talks about this more.

I think you're bound to run into more problems with crickets. There are more things to worry about than fat content. (Another note, those nutritional breakdowns fluctuate according to your gutload.) Crickets are more likely to transmit parasites and bacteria.
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chickabowwow

3.2 leopard geckos (Rosie, Locke, Lisa, Caesar, Tommy)
and 3 eggs a' cookin'

it is most certainly NOT proven that the most healthy diet for animals is low-fat. In fact recent studies in humans are showing that a higher fat, higher vegetable, but low carb diet not only encouranges weight loss in the overweight but lowers cholesterol. What IS known is that a diet full of refined, nutrition-free high glycemic index foods in dangerous. And trans-fatty acids )( an unnatural conconction not found in nature) are extremely dangereous in any amount.

You want data? Please do at least the most basic research on your own please, before you start challenging someone politely trying to inform your ignorance. Clearly you haven't even read the Leopard Gecko Manual, the most basic, fundamental and generally accepted resource of information on leos that every beginner should read. You can't learn everything from a quick Google search, you know. Buy it, read it, and then if you still have something you feel is intelligent and important and earthshaking to contest about generally accepted standards of leo care, then go for it. With gusto. But until you do, I think your time would be better spent learning more about what you challenge before doing so.

It is true that excessive fat is not good for leos, such as that in waxworms. But all the longevity records have been set with mealworms, and as the poster above points out, crickets tend to carry disease, while mealworms are a much safer food from a disease standpoint.
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Sarah Stettler aka Starling
Sarah@stargecko.com
StarGecko.Com COMING SOON! Star Quality Leopard Geckos
Specializing in Hypotangerine Tremper Albinos

You are basing everything on this "longest living gecko". Can you say that the reason he lived as long as he did was because he was feed mealworms and not crickets? Can you say that there isnt a gecko out there right now who isn't 15 years old fed only crickets and isn't on his way of out living this "longest living gecko". You can't.........There are more variables there then you can work with.

I don't see what difference it makes for a cricket to have a bigger stomach than a mealworm. It's not like the mealworms ever stop eating. It's their job as larvae to eat and store fat.

The whole point of gutloading your feeders overnight is so that the food doesn't just sit in their stomach but has time to go through their system, and they absorb the nutrients from the gutload. This is especially important if you gutload on veggies or grain products. Leos, being carnivorous, can't break down cellulose and have to rely on the feeders to do it for them.
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chickabowwow

3.2 leopard geckos (Rosie, Locke, Lisa, Caesar, Tommy)
and 3 eggs a' cookin'

You brought up an intersting question, to me at least, because I wanted to ask the same thing.

I, without really knowing the truth, mostly agree with you. While IluvBlackFrancis makes note of the fact that leos and humans store and use fat differently, it's not *fully* true. Humans store and use fat in almost the same way, just, humans deplete their fat reserves much slower when they're starving than a leo seems to, because the human body tries to preserve the fat as long as possible and chooses to break down muscles as well. That's why they say fasting as a means of dieting doesn't work--your body just starts to conserve fat and you gain weight.

I mean, people do seem to assume that the fatter gecko is the healthier one, and that just doesn't make sense. What I'm assuming is that fatter geckos are healthier than fatter people would be, because there is a difference in body chemistry between us and leos. However, I think that some things are way to extreme and people really do seem to just tout around their gecko's weight. I think anything too far from a wild gecko is probably not healthy... but, hey, sometimes an animal will live longer even if it's less healthy in total, so maybe fatter geckos are better.

About the mealworms as feeders, well, the reason for them living longer on (more than one case, by the way) mealworm diets is that mealworms don't carry parasites like crickets do. Deworming medicine could be used, but it's obviously also another stressing factor to a gecko's health. I'd guess that superworms are much healthier than mealworms, but, I don't really know. I rather feed a variety of things, but I don't think it's right to assume against what a lot of very successful leo breeders and keepers have used without problems. I know it's based on more than whim, but I wouldn't discount IluvBlackFrancis' information, then, just because you can't find it online. I've read about it in two leo books, from reasonable sources, and I'm sure there's even more information available on it by now because the info was a little old.

Well, I'm starting to type too much and not making sense (not that I need to say more or anything) so, blah.
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Thank you for looking at it as they might possible be over weight. There is alot to this and I think it was too big to ask the dietary requirement of a gecko. Also I didnt not believe that the longest living gecko was feed only mealworms but I wanted to see more information about it (sex/temp/habitat/feed pattern/etc.) there are many variables there. I also dont think large breeders are wrong but are not able to provide such a varity of foods because of the number of geckos they have. They also feed breeding females pinkies.

Maybe the Ultimate answer is to make a gecko Olympics and then we can see what the diet of champions are.

Any how I am still gonna open a diet clinic for geckos and possibly physical therapy for geckos that have poor joints from moving around all the extra weight. First to join is gonna be my over weight gecko Trixi.

Thanks
Spooner