Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know you can use mealies as a staple diet, but can you use supers?
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0.3.0 leos, Geo, Tang, Ginger
1.0 Blue Tongue Skink Indigo (Indy)
0.1.1 frogs Buffy the Cricket Slayer, Butrose Butrose Froggy
0.0.5 firebelly newts Wayne Newton, Isaac Newton, Fig Newton, Juice Newton & Olivia Newton John
1.1.0 cats Gus & Mena

I feed them crickets, mealworms, superworms, butterworms, and an ocassional wax worm as a treat only just because they are very addictive.

I also use a very nutritious and healthy gut-load as well. I think thats very important.
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Shayna
www.LeoLoversLizardLounge.com

The one I'm feeding supers to is currently only eating supers, with the occassional cricket. However, my other 2 are ONLY eating crix & I'm trying to wean them off of crix & onto mealies. One just got over an illness & hasn't shown interest in the mealies, so I went & got her crix today. As long as she eats w/o diarhea or regurg, I'm happy for now.

Another used to eat mealies & crix, but now is only showing interest in the crix. I went & got glass ashtrays so everyone could see the mealies & even put a cricket into the mealie dish- she just snatched the cricket out & turned her back on the mealies! That one is young, about 5 months old. Do you think it's OK to just leave the mealies in there & let her go hungry/cricket-less until she decides to eat the mealies?
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0.3.0 leos, Geo, Tang, Ginger
1.0 Blue Tongue Skink Indigo (Indy)
0.1.1 frogs Buffy the Cricket Slayer, Butrose Butrose Froggy
0.0.5 firebelly newts Wayne Newton, Isaac Newton, Fig Newton, Juice Newton & Olivia Newton John
1.1.0 cats Gus & Mena

I am actually weening some of my leos off crickets as well, just for the winter at least. My survival rate of crickets in the winter is pathetic. I really hate paying for dead crickets if you know what I mean. Its just too cold for them to survive.

What I did was I starved my adults for a week. I hated doing it, I really did, but I did it anyways. I gave them all mealies in low dishes and they all went NUTS! It was a huge mealie fest over here! LOL Now some of them are eating just mealies, which is good. Then I wont have to buy so many crickets in the winter.

For supers I guess its fine. My leos dont eat many superworms actually. I have seen one of my geckos eat 3 supers total. They were huge and gut-loaded well. Must have filled the gecko right up!
I am just starting to breed my superworms and if I have a big colony going I am going to offer them when they are smaller, like mealie size or a bit bigger. Then I'll see if my leos go nuts on these things.
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Shayna
www.LeoLoversLizardLounge.com

One of my ex's had an anole and one day we walked down to the pet store in the middle of winter. He got some crickets but by the time we got home they all appeared to be dead. He was not very impressed. Funny thing is that not long after we got back into the house, they started to come alive again. It was like a temporary hibernation. This has also happened to someone i work with....her daughter has a beared dragon. She bought some crickets on the way to a movie. After coming out she saw all the crickets feet up but on the drive home, after the car had heated up, the crickets started hopping around in the bag.

When i was trying to get Bronx off crickets, all i did was offer more mealworms than crickets. He loved to chase the crickets around, missing more times than not so having something stuck in a bowl was easier i guess

Red
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Crested Gecko Zeek:1.0
LEOS: Boo: 1.0 normal , Bronx & Nala: 1.1 blizzard,
Lily: 0.1 patternless, Abby: 0.1 albino, Zoe: 0.1 reduced pattern, Dot: 0.1 hypo
Chip: 1.0 papillion (small dog)
2.0 bettas

What do you all think about just not offering crix to my 5 month old anymore? I have a bunch of mealies in a glass ashtray for her. Do you think she'll adjust? I'm probably fretting WAY too much! After hearing that "leo lost for 2 years story", I should realize, she'll eat when she's hungry.

Any opinions on how to get my recently-recovered leo off crix? She's not skinny, but she is thinner than my others & don't want her hunger-striking.
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0.3.0 leos, Geo, Tang, Ginger
1.0 Blue Tongue Skink Indigo (Indy)
0.1.1 frogs Buffy the Cricket Slayer, Butrose Butrose Froggy
0.0.5 firebelly newts Wayne Newton, Isaac Newton, Fig Newton, Juice Newton & Olivia Newton John
1.1.0 cats Gus & Mena

I'm going through the same thing as you right now. My female is a little over 2 months old and I'm weaning her onto mealies.

Last night I tried for the first time and all I did was throw a mealie into the middle of her tank right infront of the hide she was in. It wiggled around enough to get her attention (also it was dinner time), so she slowly crept out to investigate it and found it quite tasty. Polished off 4 more 3/4" mealies. I put a small plastic container in incase she wanted to eat overnight, but she hadn't touched them this morning. She saw them in it and crept up to it to investigate last night just before I went to bed, but for some reason she didn't attack them in the dish and went back to her hide. She might have just not been hungry anymore, or maybe she wasn't sure about eating out of a dish. (she's always had to hunt crickets out in the open)

I'm hoping tonight she'll eat right out of the dish, so I'm going to let her try that first. If she isn't cool with that yet, I'll throw them in one at a time for her to hunt until she gets the idea and ease her into the dish.

It seems like the key is movement. She wants to hunt something and it has to grab her attention and wriggle. If the mealie isn't moving much, try putting it on the hot side of the tank because it should be more active that way. Or pick out one that seems very active. Maybe try them one at a time so your leo isn't overwhelmed by a group of them wriggling.

Just thought I'd share my experience since we seem to be in the same spot. Hope this helped.
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Blaine

0.0.1 HY/Patternless/Normal Leo (Echo)

Sounds Ok to me.

I still have the containers from buying my mealies from Petsmart. They are small containers and i open them up and count out the mealies for everyone. What i do is this. Once the container has the mealies, i put the container in the tank and shake it a bit, so they can hear the noise....this always gets their attention (i also dust the mealworms by doing it). When they are looking i then pour the mealies in the dish slowly. The movement from the mealies falling into the dish is usually enough to get them out of their hides. The shaking noise is kinda like a dinner time bell (Pavlovs dogs affect-sorry spelling?) Most of my geckos know what the container and noise means. Its been working well and all my guys eat mealworms readily now. The only time they don't come running is when they've shed, which most of them have over the past few days. Zoe is still skiddish so she'll wait until i close up her tank and leave.

Red
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Crested Gecko Zeek:1.0
LEOS: Boo: 1.0 normal , Bronx & Nala: 1.1 blizzard,
Lily: 0.1 patternless, Abby: 0.1 albino, Zoe: 0.1 reduced pattern, Dot: 0.1 hypo
Chip: 1.0 papillion (small dog)
2.0 bettas

Superworms make an excellent staple diet for adult leopard geckos. They are as nutritious as crickets and contain much less chitin compared to regular mealies too. I feed my adults superworms 3 times a week, crickets 1 time a week.
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Peace-
Kelli Hammack
H.I.S.S.
email me