Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I dont know if anyone remembers me I posted about getting a possible rescue Gecko from a lady. Well it looks like sometime mext month we will be meeting and she will bring him down to me. I live out in the boonies so im wondering if you must feed fresh crickets/meal worms or if canned stuff they sell at petstore is okay as well? Im thinking more along the lines of winter time specifically as we peridically get snowed in and a normal drive thats 30 mins can take up to an hour or more. Id like in situations like this to know if canned instects are okay? Or are they basically the same thing? I dont want to "farm" my own, bugs arent my thing lol

I have the same snow issues being in Buffalo. Most of the bulk insects I buy come almost all dead in the winter, no matter where I order them from, so I'm constantly making trips to the petstore to pick up live feeders. And my bf hates the idea of me keeping bugs inside of the house, especially when about 20 crickets just got loose last week (luckily my cat ate most of them), so breeding is now out of the question for me too.

The one thing I've noticed about canned insects from my experience with other herps and amphibians I've had in the past is that they are very difficult to get the animals to eat, because they aren't moving. They do sell vibrating food dishes, but I wouldn't even know if those work. I'd think they'd be a little scary to a gecko. Then on top of the non-movement issue, there's the fact that you really can't be too sure what is even in the canned bugs. With live feeders, at least you're in charge of what ou gutload them with.
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~*Chibi*~
Sir Iggy ( 1.0.0 El Salvador Blue Iguana), Ryo-ohki, Orion, Bud, & Finnegan (3.1.0 crazy kitties), Rosebud (0.1.0 cockerspaniel), Trixie and Kayko (0.1.1 leopard gecko)

They are not as bad as crickets to handle and the smell isn't that bad.

Crickets are disgusting. I recently got a bulk order of crickets from online and it's the nastiest thing ever. I have no problem handling the crickets but they smell so bad it's awful, and there is poop and dead bodies everywhere.

I've also got a bunch of silkworms going but my geckos won't eat them and they are exspensive to feed if you have to feed silkworm chow.

Next I'm trying roaches because anything must be better than crickets.
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1.0.0 Double Het Patternless Albino Leopard Gecko 'Yoshi'
0.1.0 Patternless Albino Leopard Gecko 'Miso'
1.0.0 Beagle 'Tigger'
0.1.0 Jack Russell 'Roo'
2.0.0 Guinea Pigs 'Millhouse and Ralph'
1.0.0 Hamster 'Fluff'
1.0.0 Husband

UGH!! The smell from the crickets is the worst!! It's bad enough that I think I will breed my own mealworms. I wasn't too crazy about the idea of having a drawer full of worms in my house, but it HAS to be better then these smelly crickets. The one thing I'm worried about is the number of worms I might produce. I only have 2 juvie geckos, so I'm sure I'll make more worms then I could possibly use.

As to the original post...I don't know of a single person who had fed dead (canned) bugs to geckos succesfully. If you're worried about food during the winter (I understand - I'm in Chicago) you really only have two options. You can grow your own and not worry about where the next gecko meal is going to come from...or you can drive to the nearest pet store for food every couple days. Either way, you'll need some sort of temporary storage for the bugs because you want to make sure that they are gut-loaded before feeding to your gecko. I wouldn't trust a pet store to gut-load with the correct stuff (a lot of times they don't gut-load at all).

Mealworms are handy even if you don't want to breed them because you can keep them in hibernation in your fridge. Many stores carry them in tubs of 50, 100, and 500. You will need to take them out at least 24 hours prior to feeding your gecko so they can be gut-loaded.