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I was wondering if you can handfeed a leo. If so how do you do it? do you feed it live? or dead(frozen and then thawed out/can o crickets/can o worms)?
If you feed it dead do you feed it frozen then thawed or the can o cricets/can or worms?
if you feed it frozen then thawed what do you do to gutload the crickets?
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0.1 Albino Leopard gecko (Lex)
0.0.1 ball python (felix)
1.1 feral cats (Fuzzy, and Bear; it used to be fuzzy, wuzzy, bear)
Yes, you can hand feed a leo. I don't think you can feed them frozen/thawed foods but the can o foods are ok for treats if your leo will eat them. (Mine won't touch anything thats not alive). With Geico I've fed him mealies from my fingers before, but with Tiny I prefer to impale the mealie on a toothpick then feed it to her due to her feistiness and voracious appetite
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Heather
1.1 leopard geckos: Geico and Tiny
0.1 husky/hound mix: Savannah
0.2 pet rats: Faith and Zelda
i dont know about the can o' worms/crickets but i use alive mealworms and i just put it into my palm and she ate it.
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...they're comfortable with you. However, if it's not moving, they wont take it.
I have a rather severe allergy to crickets. So I used to order a box of 1000, gut load them on mixed veggies, smashed dog and cat food, and rodent chow, for 24 hours then dump them all in a zip lock bag and freeze them.
When feeding time came around, I'd take out the appropriate quantity, thaw them, powder them, and offer them to my leos via forceps (I used the forceps for my own sake because when fed by hand some of my larger guys would grab my finger along with the cricket). Since each leo had to be fed individually this method took up a great deal of time especially as my collection grew. This is largely why I made the switch to mealworms.
I would occaisionally feed my geckos canned crickets in this manner when my cricket shipment was delayed. I did not,however, ever consider using canned crickets as a staple because there was no way to ascertain whether or not they had been properly gut loaded.
Hope this helps,
Alice
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