Setting up

Oh and I just realized I didn't welcome you to the forums. So...

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1.../welcome41.gif

No need to dust insects with calcium for leos...if you offer them a dish full of the powder they will lick it up on their own time and regulate their own intake. They won't take in "too much." I keep a trio that goes through that stuff pretty quick, and when I replace an empty dish of calcium, they'll often smell it, come out of hiding, and consume some of it immediately...

******Final run down******

20 Gallon long tank
ZooMed Nightlight Red Reptile Bulb on 24/7 keeping temperature at 88 degrees
Regular light bulb during day, just for a little light
ESU Repitle Lizard Liner as substrate or paper towels depending on age
Couple of hand made hide boxes w/ moist paper towel on both sides
Cool side around 72 degrees (will be monitored)

Thanks for the warm welcome

I hate the idea of keeping live crickets on a regular basis and feeding them! Can I use the Zoo-Med Leopard Gecko food instead and mix it with calcium?

Thanks

I have never had any experience with that particular food. It looks like it would be ok, but I'd wait and see what anyone else says. It looks like freeze dried crickets, and I'm not sure how well leos would take to it.

You could also use mealworms, if you'd prefer those.

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Originally Posted by RESowner34

I hate the idea of keeping live crickets on a regular basis and feeding them! Can I use the Zoo-Med Leopard Gecko food instead and mix it with calcium?

Thanks

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That food is garbage...live insects are the only way to go with these guys.

I've raised a trio on gutloaded mealworms exclusively, I give them crickets 1-2x a month if that just for fun. Can't beat the simplicity of a mealworm dish...keep it full, they eat what they want, as much as they want, when they want it. Very easy.

I'm very curious as to why you so quickly disregard that food.

It says it's made out of small size flies. I was also wondering if Fluker's Freeze-Dried Crickets could be fed. They come gut-loaded with Fluker's Hi-Calcium Cricket Diet.

As gecko owners what our main goal is to provide the necessary nutrients for the gecko to live healthily. Does it really matter how the gecko gets the nutrients as long as he/she gets them in his or her system?

Thanks

In my experience the geckos won't touch anything that is dead. I tried that stuff a long time ago and my geckos looked at me like "Crazy woman thinks we're gonna eat that?" They wouldn't touch it. Now as far as nutritional value of the food I have no idea.

Thats why I breed mealies, they dont stink and I have a constant supply. I buy more every once in a great while just to refresh the breeding colony. You can usually buy about 500 mealies at a petstore for $5. I used to feed only cricets but they smell so bad. When I would open the cricket bin it smelled like a dead body no matter how often I cleaned it.

I don't have any other evidence besides the advice of leopard gecko breeders I've spoken to...I'm sure they would prefer to feed a commercially available diet with a long shelf life if it was more beneficial to the animal.

Could a leo survive on that food? Sure, but would they thrive? Would you like to see your pet thrive or just get by?

I'm sorry if I came off as rude. :D Well I was skepticle about mealworms because this site had this to say about mealworms.....

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Somehow, the idea that Leopard Geckos can be maintained solely on a diet of mealworms has come into vogue. Sadly, this is not the case. Or at least it would be a real challenge to do so long term. I'm sure several readers are thinking "but I've kept mine that way", maybe so. But have you done this for several generations or kept one gecko for over twenty years? There's a big difference between short-term maintenance of a year or so and long-term maintenance with heavy reproduction.

The simple truth is this: Mealworms have an incredibly bad balance ratio of calcium to phosphorus. Providing an excessive amount of phosphorous in the diet can cause severe problems with calcium adsorption. While many keepers will dust the mealworms with calcium supplement in an effort to offset this, the reality is that mealworms are very smooth and little of it sticks.

While feeding the mealworms a special diet to offset this major problem can be done, it always makes me think of a house painter trying to get pink paint by tinting a bucket of blue paint... Why not just buy the pink, or at least some white to start tinting from?

We feed mealworms sometimes as a backup food source, should we have trouble acquiring crickets, or as an occasional treat. We do not recommend they be used as a primary diet source.

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http://www.vmsherp.com

How do the rest of you manage with crickets. Do you breed them or buy them in bulk?