Eating Question 2

Ok, so it's been a week since crickets and they only ate the baby food one time that I could tell. A few licks had been missing, etc. Anyway, I do see them sitting on the edge of the cricket dish every night though looking into the bowl thing like they feel that there should be crickets there to eat. Should I put the baby food in the cricket bowl? Would that make them eat it? Another option would be to take them out of their kritter keeper and put them in one that doesn't have anything in it and put the babyfood in there and sit them by it so they know it's food? Let me know if any one of these would work and any suggestions you all may have.

are you trying to switch them over to a diet or babyfood? i feed mine mainly crickets and i supplement babyfood feedings. try mixing the babyfood with the crested diet mix.


vaughn

I would try taking the cricket dish out and putting the babyfood dish in it's place. Also, make sure that it's a flavor that they like, mine love banana.

I have not switched to CGD yet. I'm still only using babyfood with vitamins and calcium powder mixed in.

Try mixing the CGD with fruit juice or nectar, or with the babyfood (they will probably prefer some flavors to others -- try banana, apricot, peach, or papaya if you haven't). I didn't realize you were trying to feed babyfood exclusively. Babies need a good amount of protein in their diet, and they will suffer fairly soon without it. The CGD or the gargoyle gecko diet is formulated for them and has the nutrients they need.

I can't get my CGD to solidify at all. It seems to just be watery and then a mealy/crunchy sludge after that. I followed the directions on the bottle, but they don't seem to create what it says it will.

i just use a small baby spoon. mix it 2 parts water to 1part diet. mix it well sometimes i ad a little peach babyfood to it. it will look real soupy at first then it should become more solid in an hour or so.


vaughn

I mix my CGD with a little less water than it says. It seems to make a better mixture that way. Also, I add about the same amount of babyfood as CGD. This thickens the mixture, and both of mine really seem to enjoy it.

Yep, it definitely takes a little time to "set" the mixture (half an hour maybe?), as I guess the slower-absorbing parts do their thing. You can do what I do and mix up a bunch of it and freeze it in ice cube trays (I use small ones, or you could just make short cubes) then thaw out as needed. That way you don't have as much babyfood go bad.

I dunno that I would want to freeze the CGD. It might change the makeup of some of the supplements and make it less effective.

Got any data to back that up? I'd sure be interested in seeing it. I know for a fact that some of the ingredients are freezable without negative consequences, but I do not know about all of them.

Nope. I'd have to look up each ingredient in CGD individually and I really don't have the time for that right now. Just what I know from nutrition... frozen food usually aren't as good as fresh. But then CGD is dried.. so who knows. I think I'll ask the creator of the diet.. I'll keep you posted on that.

Thanks, I'd definitely be interested to hear the results of that.

To be honest I think it is pointless to feed the cgd and baby food and insects .. the crested gecko diet was designed as a stand alone feeding method and it is cautioned about changeing up the formula if you do this you need to take in to account calcuim /phosphorus ratio
I personally had little success with the crested gecko diet and found that my animals look better are more active and reproduce better without it .
On the frozen issue, the ingredients of the crested gecko diet are allready highly processed and come from stored bulk ingredients allready I dont think a week or 2 in the freezer is going to effect the nutritional value that much in that short of time period

Thanks for your input, Robert. What is your feeding schedule, and do you vary it according to age/size/gender?

I offer both insects and fresh fruit or baby food from day one for all of them and feed both daily , the only thing that varies is the size and variety of the insects

And with both daily you don't have any problems with picky eaters not getting enough of one or the other? I have noticed that they can get downright picky about their food, though some seem happy to eat just about anything.

Marla I have no problems with picky eaters at all probably due to the fact the insect part of the diet varies day to day ... crickets roaches meal worms silk worms and some wax worms now and then

do you mix any supplements in with the baby food--reptivite, calcium, etc.--or do you just give it to them as is?

All righty, Robert, here's a question for you: my new babies were given papaya and CGD their first night, but I couldn't tell if they touched it because I served it spread out on a yogurt lid. The second night, I served the same mixture but had moved them to a smaller container and put it on a little piece of foil. When I checked them this morning, the small mound (1/2 tsp or so) was gone and the entire inside of the enclosure had been smeared with it. It looked like they had a contest to see who could spread more around. Is that a good sign that they ate some? I'm sure it will be easier to see them eat when their little crickets get here at least.

LOL - crested food fight and painting contest!

I add my supplements right in with the baby food and dust the insects a time or two a week Marla for the first few weeks it is very hard to tell if they are eating the baby food or not ,just set it up in as smooth of a puddle as you possibly can and you will see tiny indents in it the next morning they dont eat much at first the best way to tell if they are eating is their activity level, if they are still bouncing around the cage after 2-4 days after hatching they are probably eating the baby food
I always intoduce a bit of baby food to them on the end of my finger for the first couple nights to make sure they know the smell as food It is hard to tell when they track through it .. more than likely they got a bit just from cleaning up after the food fight they dont like any thing sticking to their head at all so ill some times just dab a bit on their nose and it gets cleaned off righ away

Thanks Robert. They had another

Quote:

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crested food fight and painting contest

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(good description, TG!) with last night's dinner, but when I put it in with them last night, I did dab a little on each of their noses. Seeing "indents" is how I figured out my first cresties were eating at the beginning of this year, but if you saw this, you'd know there is absolutely no way to see indents in the food. The piece of foil is almost completely clean of food, as are the cresties, but the substrate (damp paper) and walls really look just the way Tiger described. I figure with that much interest in the food, they must be eating some of it, though they're so skinny I want them to fatten up a little! :)

they must be eating at least some of it if they have the energy to smear it all over the place like that. creativity is a sign of intelligence. let them paint! :P

LOL, good point. They certainly don't seem to be suffering from a lack of energy. Though I don't know how I could stop them from painting even if I wanted to. :)

Still waiting on a reply from the CGD producers... I have this feeling that they aren't going to reply to me. Might have to get a phone number and give them a call when I get bored lol.

to get in touch directly with allen you will probably have to call him


vaughn