Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My baby gecko is eating about 5-7 dusted mealworms a night. They are about 1/2" long or so. He's only 6-7" long himself. He poops almost every day too. I'm just worried about overfeeding it. Will it eat as much as food as I put in there or does it stop when it's not hungry anymore?
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==== Tim W =======================
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0.1 Dumeril Boa "Visara" ==
0.1 Domestic Housecat "Kiki" ==
0.0.1 Leopard Gecko "Unnamed" ==

Are you feeding him crickets as well? Mealworms are not a good staple and can cause problems occasionally in baby leos that dont chew their food well enough. Try to feed them the mealies that have just molted, they are much softer, you can tell these ones because they are white. Don't worry about over feeding at this age, your baby needs all the food he can get to grow over the next few months.

I am going to the petstore today to get some crickets that are right size. But nobody has any waxworms around here.
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==== Tim W =======================
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0.1 Dumeril Boa "Visara" ==
0.1 Domestic Housecat "Kiki" ==
0.0.1 Leopard Gecko "Unnamed" ==

Mealworms aren't a bad staple many top breeders use mealworms as a staple and havent had a problem just feed it smaller mealies when its little.And they need all the food they can get as a baby.
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-Ryan

Feeding freshly molted mealworms doesn't do much good. The exoskeleton still hardens and needs to pass through the system. I fed ONLY freshly molted mealworms to one of my leos, and she still pooped out the shells. So there's no real benefit, except you get the added problem of the leo not chewing the mealworm thoroughly because it's easy to just swallow a freshly molted mealworm whole. If you ever compare how long it takes for a leo to gobble up a mealworm compared to a freshly molted one, you'll know what I'm talking about.
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chickabowwow

I don't know how long it takes the leo to eat because he still won't eat if I am in the room, I guess he is still shy. I went and got some crickets today anyway and I got the last waxworms too.
Should I "disable" the cricket by taking its back legs off or something, they are moving around so much. Don't want them going all over cage and hiding or dodging the gecko's mouth. Some already seem to have popped their legs off on the ride home.
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==== Tim W =======================
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0.1 Dumeril Boa "Visara" ==
0.1 Domestic Housecat "Kiki" ==
0.0.1 Leopard Gecko "Unnamed" ==