How many crickets should i feed my leopard gecko

Healthy adult geckos should be fed every other day. Sickly geckos should be fed once a day until they regain their strength. If your gecko is a problem eater, feed it normally, but leave a dish with worms in its tank in case it wants to eat later. He reacts to being touched. He reacts to movements inside and outside of the tank, especially when hungry. He approaches the front glass when he is hungry and he sees you. Do you want to know about the staple food of the leopard gecko?

Crickets are the most common food for many reptiles, including the leopard gecko. For more details on this topic, check out the rest of the article. Table of Contents. Load More. Older males tend to have very naturally fat tails, so the concerned keeper should also judge behavior to determine whether or not a change in diet is necessary. This extremely active species becomes lethargic when too fat, so observation of nighttime activity and energy levels is recommended.

They can also become too thin. This nocturnal creature will need insects well dusted with calcium and D3, especially as a hatchling and juvenile. The best time of a day to feed your crested gecko is the in the evening, when they naturally start hunting.

The general guideline is to feed a good crested gecko diet every other day, with gutloaded, dusted insects being introduced around a month after hatching. The formulation should not be further supplemented; additional calcium with D3 can be added through proper gut loading of the feeder insects.

Treats like mashed fruit should be offered no more than twice a month. Feeding more crickets than listed above can cause an imbalance in the calcium-phosphorus ratio. This omnivorous species will eat fewer insects and more vegetable matter than the species listed above.

Many keepers use crickets in addition to a commercially prepared crestie chow. For adults, the keeper will be able to supply the prey items in ways that maintain proper weight for these particular animals.

Hatchlings need careful observation. It can be difficult to determine food consumption, as they take tiny licks of their commercial prepared formulations and their poops are easily hidden within leaves and branches. Also, hatchlings can live off their internal yolk sacks for a week or more after hatching. Placing food in the enclosure hours after hatching just in case they are hungry is prudent, but feeding not being observed is not necessarily cause for concern until day 7.

Many experienced keepers do not offer live prey until between one and two months of age, order to train the baby to consume the formulated food balanced for nutrition, instead of coming to prefer only insects and refusing their crestie chow. Obesity in crested geckos can be a problem. A tailless crestie should have a rounded torso, with ribs just barely visible right behind the forearms. The hip bones should be visible, without being overly prominent. Mature females that have laid clutches may be a little bit plumper looking without indicating obesity.

Even a mature breeder should not exceed 45 gms. An overly thin gecko that is expressing a stick-tail, may benefit from increased rations once disease based concerns are eliminated. A common reason crested gecko can appear too thin overall, not just in the tail, is dehydration. Crickets offer very little moisture, and so increasing food items for the animal may not solve the problem, but clean water in addition to extra crickets may.

For owners wanting their young pet to reach their maximum and impressive size of 7 to 8 inches quickly, scorplings can be counted on to consume as much as they can get their little pincers on and sting into submission. The more they eat, the faster they pass through their instars to adulthood. Tiny, white, baby scorpions that have just been born and have yet to molt first instar will not be able to feed themselves, and will depend on mom to do that for them. She will shred prey items and feed them to her young manually.

If you keep a dish with live mealworms in the enclosure, it may be a good idea to keep a small piece of carrot or apple in the dish so the worms are well fed when you leopard gecko eats them. Even if you do a great job of gut loading your feeder insects, your leopard gecko still may not be getting all of the nutrients it needs.

You can buy supplements to provide vitamins your gecko may not get enough of in its normal diet. Calcium is important to young geckos as they grow to avoid Metabolic Bone Disease MBD and to breeding females for egg production.

Leopard geckos typically do not bask in sunlight like many reptiles, and may not get enough vitamin D3. Be careful over supplementing with vitamin D3. D3 is fat soluble, which means it can be stored in your leopard geckos body. Too much will cause the vitamin to build up. Your gecko should not be getting D3 all the time. Some leopard gecko owners will keep a small dish of calcium powder in the enclosure so the leopard gecko can lick the powder at its leisure.

Sprinkling some supplement dust on a rock is another option. Another way of delivering supplements to your leopard gecko is through dusting the food that it eats. This is how most reptile owners give their pets supplements. Most lizard owners will place a small amount of the powder in a plastic bag or container, place the insect inside, and lightly shake until the insect has a thin coating of the powder.

You could also try a cricket shaker if you want something specially designed for this purpose. If left too long, the supplement powder will rub off. Crickets may be the easiest insect to dust, though you may try you luck with others. Mealworms are general too smooth for much of the dust to stick. Some folks just reach in and grab a few mealworms to toss into a feeding dish. Crickets and dubia roaches may be a bit more of a challenge to wrangle. No problem. Just use tweezers. They extend your reach and make it easier to pick up insects that are hard to pick up.

Aquarium tweezers are great for this purpose. For instance, when your gecko is young, it will be growing rapidly and need ample energy to do so.

As your gecko ages, it will not need food as often. You can use the following as a quick guide for feeding and supplements:. When is the best time of day to feed your leopard gecko?

Leopard geckos are crepuscular, which means they are most active during the twilight hours around dusk and dawn. As a result, early evening or early mornings are when they would typically hunt and feed naturally.