Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey everyone, I used to post here a long time ago under a different name. I'm back.

The crickets I feed my leo always run and hide in the cage, whether it be on plants, hide boxes, or corners...

Sometimes my leopard finds them, but the ones he doesn't find he doesn't eat. Every time I feed him, some manage to survive and hide. Then they litter the age with poop, and when they starve it is dirty.

Sometimes, my leo will find all of them eventually, but they have been eating his humidity moss, drinking his water, pooping, and messing the place up while getting starved and losing their supplement powder.

How do you feed the crickets do your leo without any escaping and hiding?

I've been thinking about just having a small feeding box with some sand and a water dish in it, and dumping the leo and crix in.

Help!

The feeding dish sounds fine. How about just putting him in there with just paper towels though. I am in no way anti-sand, but its not like the feeding box will be on display like his cage might be. And that is why most people use sand, for looks. So you could just take the safer route and use paper towels, and still have sand in his cage.
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Josh
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I know it sounds cruel but if you break off the hind legs to the crickets they will move enough to excite your leo but not fast enough to hide.

This might sound a little mean, but I put enough crickets for them to eat in a clean coffee can and shake it pretty hard a few times to knock the crickets a little silly (not too much or you will 86 them)- they don't jump anymore, but do move enough for my leos to eat. When you do this, you can put them in a glazed ceramic feeding dish and they don't escape. Also, one of my leos has learned that I will drop the cricks in fromt of her one at a time if she comes to me and she will eat until I'm willing to stop. Pretty neat to interact with them like this. It is a nightly ritual - resulted in a super tame youngster - she's only 3-1/2 months old. Good luck - RR

That's cool, one of mine does the same thing. The breaking the legs off thing does the trick, I had to use it myself for a while. If crickets are too much trouble, maybe you could try meal worms. If you do, then you could just leave them in a shallow dish with calc. powder and then your gecko can eat when ever he/ she wants.

Ed