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I bought super meal worms for my 1 year old Leoperd Gecko. She loves them! I know crickets are an essential part of their diet. But I have an issue with housing crickets in my house. Is it possible to subsitute crickets for the super meal worms??

Thank you for your time, Ron.

I think the most important concern is the nutritional value the worms will have compared to a gut loaded cricket.My guess is that you will have a sick lizard on your hands if you don't add some kind of other food in your geckos diet.Maybe you could take on small batches of crickets to help balance the geckos diet.

Many breeders use nothing but mealworms/superworms so it is certainly possible.

However, there are some associated issues:

Meal Worms and Super Worms have a terrible calcium to phosphorus ratio. Which means they need to be supplemented with calcium more often than crickets would.

They also have a much higher fat content. A high fat diet with geckos will cause the same problems as a high fat diet with humans: heart, liver and kidney issues mostly.

In the wild, leopard geckos eat lots of beetle grubs so they are probably better adapted to the high fat content than other lizards but that doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. So in summary, you can use nothing but super worms and your leopard gecko will probably do quite well. However, you will most likely get a longer lifespan if you introduce some variety into the diet. Grubco provides a basic nutritional information table on common feeder insects. You can check it out here: http://www.grubco.com/Nutritional_Information.cfm

good luck!
Zach

We also like to add in butterworms, which are very low in fat and high in calcium. They are easy to keep in the fridge and most leos will eat them, but not all.
I have a huge sunglow and all he would eat were crickets. Since I hate hassling with crickets I tried to get him on other feeders, to no avail...until I tried butterworms. He loves them....and he is picky. Most leos just need a few butterworms per day, so while they are a bit pricey, you don't use as many.

Also be sure you keep a small dish of a mineral vitamin mixture for your leos to lap up as they need it. We use a combo mixture of Osteo Form, Rep Cal, and Herptivite.
Designer Geckos