Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm trying to research why pinkies are considered bad for leopard geckos. I'm not so sure I'm convinced that they are. My 8 year old baby girl adores pinkies. I give them to her 2-3x/month. She likes crickets but doesn't get as excited, but boy when she sees that little paper bag her eyeballs get huge and she practically crawls up the side of her cage. The main thing that gets me thinking that there's a lot of bad hype for nothing with the pinkies is that the same naysayers are the ones suggesting they should only be fed to females who are laying. Why would something that's supposedly dangerous for otherwise healthy, normal geckos be advocated for geckos in a more delicate state? I make sure it's the appropriate size, and that it is hairless. The bones aren't bones, they're cartiledge, and I'm sorry but I can't expect that that's more dangerous than the exoskeletons of full-grown crickets. Anyway, she's my little angel and I've had her since she was the size of my pinky so I guess I'm looking for a little reassurance that I'm being a good mommy, or even if someone has some founded reasons of if this could be harmful.

Its fine to give pinkies as a treat. 2-3 times a month isnt going to hurt her. The reason they are considered bad is because they are very fatty. Just dont go overboard and feed her one eveyday.
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"If you talk to animals,
they will talk with you
and you will know each other.

If you do not talk to them,
you will not know them,
and what you do not know
you will fear.

What one fears,
one destroys."
.

-Chief Dan George

Thank you Krystal. So basically it is just the fat issue I need to watch out for. Sometimes I'll feed them as a replacement meal. Like if they don't have the size crickets I need I'll get her a pinky or two and search for crickets the next day. She's slimmer than about 60% of the leopards I see, eats about 20 large crickets a week, and approx one pinkie a week. Since I don't feed worms, I've tried but I truly have a debilitating fear of worms that has kept me up at night wondering if they've escaped, I would like to actually incorporate more mice in her diet, one every 5 days, or about 6/month. I want to get her weight up and since I don't feed worms she doesn't get much of a fat source from the crickets. I figure the pinkies are easier and she loves them and I'm not freakishly terrified of them....everyone's happy.

first off pinkys are NOT high in fat, it has been proven that they are less than five percent...once they start to get past the fuzzy stage is when they start to get more fatty. im not going to go into a big long story, but i did some experamenting with pinkys when i was breeding cresteds, i fed one pinky every three weeks to half my females that were breeding, and fed the other half of my breeding females "normal" crestie diet(cgk, fresh fruit mash, some baby food, ect.) the animals that got pinkys seemed more alert and active than the ones that were not offered pinks...they were more robust(not fat) and produced more and healthier eggs... i did this for two years with the same animals, and the ones that got pinks were healthier animals, this being said, be careful not to feed pinks as a staple food, once every couple weeks is what i would reccomend. just my personal experience.