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Anyone feed there leos silkworms? I'm looking for tips on caring for silkworms and opinions on how difficult it is to do. Also interested to know about how many a leo might eat in a feeding (preferably a young leo, but would be interested to know about adults too).

Thank you.
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i feed my animals ever friday nite. killer, my amost adult male, gets fed silk worms every other week, and he eats ne where from 7-12 at a time and then he is good for the week his tail is nice and plump. im not to sure about there care but 2marrow is friday and feeding day so i mite b able to find a lil sumtin bout them from the guy that i buy them from.
hope that helps
nevin

Thank you - I'd appreciate it. As I'm hoping to use a staple diet of silkworms (since they are more nutritious than crickets) and mealworms and supplement with crickets. Right now I'm trying to learn about taking care of silkworms and mealworms and how many I might expect having to buy and how often.

Thanks!
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im not to sure bout an all diet of silk worms, from what i was told, they are all of one type of vitamin and not enough of others wich u get from crickets, that y switch it up ever week, but thats just what ive been told so i could b wrong.
no problem
nevin

Please tell me if this info is outdated or has been proven otherwise, but everything I've read says silkworms have a "high content of Calcium, Protein, Iron, Magnesium, Vitamins B1, B2, B3".

I've also been referring to this chart (I had a few others with that also pointed to silkies being more nutritous, but I can't seem to locate them right now):
www.anapsid.org/foodnutr.html

Not long ago I was considering a bearded dragon and was told by many that silkworms were better and a beardie could have a staple diet of silkworms instead of crickets.

However, please correct me if I'm wrong - I'm learning.

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Melissa Kaplan's info isn't always correct, and most likely HER stuff is outdated.

Crickets have some vitC, but you can supplement that through vitamin powder. Crickets gutload easier, silkworms might only eat what they eat (it's either eucalyctus leaves or mullberry leaves, unless I'm thinking of something else). Mealworms gutload fine since they eat their substrate.

-Lemur 6

Yeah, I know about Melissa. I did have other sources that supported this information (that's why I bookmarked her chart), but now that I think about it I believe I may have deleted it since I decided against getting a bearded dragon. The few online sites I found that sell silkworms also support this.

You're thinking correctly - silkworms eat mulberry leaves or you can by a mix to make their food.

I assumed that even mealworms and silkworms, etc would still be dusted with supplements. Is this correct?
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Yes, I dust my mealworms and I think a lot of others will tell you that they do as well. You can also supply vitamin powder via a small dish, and the geckos will simply take a lick whenever they feel the need.

Now what to dust them with... well I'm a little unsure in that area as are a lot of others. A number of people seem to like T-rex's ICB gecko dust, a lot of people are long time users of Minerall, others mix theirs using different powders, I use reptivite myself since it was recommended by my vet and it had concentrations of all the ingredients listed on the bottle(nice to know how much of what's in the stuff).

But I think gutloading is more important than vitamin powder (some will argue if geckos even need some of the vitamins they put in the powder). Calcium on the other hand is mandatory in order to prevent metabolic bone disease.

-Lemur 6

Wow, I'm surprised, most people feed adult geckos once every other day.

-Lemur 6

i dont really c a need to feed once every other day especealy as an adult. mine are fed one pinky or 2 pinkies ever week along with 6-12 silk worms, or 20 crickets ever other week. there tails are accually quite plump and from what i can tell they're happy. and if silk worms really have that meny vites in them i think i might swich over to only them too, but ill have more info 2marrow, so check this thread 2marrow. and agent of lylith how often u feed urs, i always like hearing others opinions and learning others methods
thanx
nevin

p.s.i forgot to mention i do gutload the crickets befor they get eaten

one other thing im not tryin to argue or be sarcastic in ne thing i have said its just my method. as long as the animals are happy tahts all that matters so like i said im curious on ur method
nevin

I'm sorry, I assumed you only fed crickets. Pinkies are an extremely dense form of nutrition so I can see how feeding once a week will do for a gecko on pinkies (but I don't think a gecko should be feed so many, every week you say?).

I feed my gecko everyday since he's ony a few months old. The adults I used to have only ate every other day even if food was available to them all the time, and pinkies I only fed to females who were egglaying so they can get that extra boost of nutrients. I don't think I'd feed my male a pinkie every week though, might give him a heart attack or kidney stones (it's like having a 1/2" steak every night for dinner).

I'll leave the "nutritionists" to have the final say on how healthy such a practice is.

-Lemur 6

lmao on the 1/2 stake thing. quit funny. but i cant say i feed them a pinky every week i should really say that i only offer it to them every week 8/10 they will take them sometimes they dont and the kidny stone thing, will i just resently learned about that a couple weeks ago so i did accually cut bak on them.
its not so much that i only feed them once a week. the crickets are in there so they can eat them as they please. i gut load them, put them in the cage, and then throw a couple extra peaces of gutload in the cage also so they have something to live off and not even touch the geckos. thanx for letting me kno ur ways of feeding.
nevin

leo's get kidney stones. I'm sure they can get some sort of disease similar to that, but I've never seen it, and never seen anyone mention it. I was referring to people (particularly the meat and potatoes for dinner people), since I see alot of them with uric acid stones in their kidneys.

-Lemur 6

once again lmao, i wasnt to sure bout the kidney stone, but from what i was told they do get some sort of kidney problem that i donno to much about, wen u said that i thought that, the kidney problem was a kidney stone. but i would like to kno is, do u kno what the kidney problem is that they can get from to meny pinkies?
nevin

Meat (especially red meat like beef) in general has a lot of uric acid, so I guess a lot of meat can lead to uric acid build up and eventual kidney failure. This is the extreme case, but I guess it's possible.

-Lemur 6

How old is your gecko?

Im just curious why you decided to feed only once a week as opposed to the often recommended schedule of every day or every other day?
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killer is 3 years 1/2, salene is 1 this month, and grim is 8 months
and there all in perfict condition, salene don like pinkies or silk worms tho
nevin