Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi, back again with another question.
just wanted to know what is the best method of getting calcium and vitamins into geckos. gutloading the crickets with those water cubes with calcium. or a dish with rep-cal. or is dusting the crickets and meal worm with supplements the best way to go. what does everyone here do? what kinda supplements do you actually use? and is there any way to over do it? i know chameleons can get sick from vitamin A. thanks for all the help.

I have a mixture of 3 forulas:

- About 3 parts Rep-Cal (i think that's what it's called) Calcium powder without Vitamin D3
- About 1 parts Flukers Calcium powder with Viamin D3
- About 1 parts multi-vitamin/minerals (can't remember brand)

Because leopard geckos are nocturnal, in nature they wouldn't be getting much to any vitamin D from sunlight, so they really don't need much. However, D is needed for processing Calcium, so it is important to have. Too much vitamin D can hurt a leopard gecko, but I'm sure that any calcium product on the market for reptiles would probably be fine in the long run.

I use the above formula to dust crickets and mealworms as well as to put in a dish that goes in the leos cage. I also use it in the meal/substrate that my mealworms live/eat on. It seems to work well for me.
-----
1.2.0 Leopard Geckos
0.1.0 Miniature long-haired dachsund

like i was saying, the point of my post was that too much vitamin D can hurt a leo, so make sure the calcium you use doesn't have too much, and if it does, then you could mix it with another formula that doesn't have any, because they need at least some D in their diet.
-----
1.2.0 Leopard Geckos
0.1.0 Miniature long-haired dachsund

I use Miner-All (I).
-----
Sam
Gecko Den
Email Me

I don't think anyone on this forum could tell you what the best method is, they can only tell you what works for them or otheres they know. That being said, this is the method I currently use. The container I keep my mealworms in gets a substrate of flaked babyfood and slices of corrot for moisture. I feed only mealies to my colony and use feeding dishes(sandwich sized rubbermaid containers). I keep a 1/8" layer of t-rex sandfire superfoods gutload in the bottom at all times. The t-rex product is all I use as a means to supplement my leos. I have been using this method for 8 months now and it works great.

good luck

>>hi, back again with another question.
>>just wanted to know what is the best method of getting calcium and vitamins into geckos. gutloading the crickets with those water cubes with calcium. or a dish with rep-cal. or is dusting the crickets and meal worm with supplements the best way to go. what does everyone here do? what kinda supplements do you actually use? and is there any way to over do it? i know chameleons can get sick from vitamin A. thanks for all the help.
-----
Bill DiFabio
Garden State Herpetoculture...website to follow...
Email Me
"The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense,
not between right and wrong." - Carl Jung