Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I posted a while ago about one of my leo pooping runny stool with worms and then just died in the next day; I now had all my other geckos checked by the vet, it turns out that they all have round worms and coccidia (and may be something more). I woundn't have notice that they are sick if I have not got their fecal done, since they are all eating and putting on weights and have nice fat tails. Their stool also looked fine to me too.

I did use sand as substrate (I don't anymore), but I do remove their faeces as soon as I notice them every night. The vet told me they probably had the parasites when I got them, or they might have eaten contaminated food. I raise my own mealworm colony and fed them mealworms as staple; only offering crickets (bought from reptile shop) like once or twice a year, I am worried that the crickets are the intermediate host. What shall I do? Crickets are supposed to be more nutritionous?

Is there anyway that I can assure that the crickets are free from parasites? Keep and feed them for a week before giving it to my leos? will that help?

Thanks.

In addition to the first post, yes, I am scared of crickets, and do not want to raise my own crickets. If I don't feed them crickets, what other things can I give them to keep a balanced diet?

Also, I have to give them a sulfur-based medicine for a week, I have problems getting their mouths open, don't want to stress them too much, any hints?

About the crickets, crickets from any pet shops or herp stores almost always are raised in unsanitary conditions, they eat molded food and bacteria grown inside of them causing them to get all sorts of parasites,

ordering crickets from Fluckerfarms.com or lllreptile.com or any other reputable insect breeders is best, they keep their crickets as sterile as they can, i've ordered from both and never had any problems

As a substitute you can use Waxworms,butterworms, silkworms and a pinky every week

feeding them a staple of mealworms is fine, i feed mine only mealworms now and they get pretty fat, its all about the gutload
cody's gutload (from progeckos.com) is great

to get they're mouths open you can take you thumb and index finger and place them on both sides of the leos bottom jaw and pull down gently..it will stress them out of course, but its to save their lives,

Dan

I've never heard of and don't think crickets can carry/transmit coccidia. However, they are host to at least pinworms and I believe probably roundworms as well. Just getting them from a 'reputable' source isn't enough. I am pretty confident in the statement that if you feed crickets to your geckos, you'll have to deal with some of the parasites, pins being the most common.

Try just putting the syringe (or whatever you're feeding the medicine with) up to the side of the gecko's mouth and dabbing a little on its lips. Most of the geckos I've had to give medicine to will lick it off and once you get them started, you can usually get them to lap up the rest. I've never given that medicine to them, though, there may be some taste issues, but I think they'll at least lick it out of annoyance.

There's nothing at all wrong with feeding entirely mealworms. I've raised several on gutloaded and supplemented mealworms for years with no problems whatsoever. If they eat em, they'll be fine.
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Rob Jenkins
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Herptopia Reptiles
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