Leos, Crickets and Mealworms...

[hunter94]

Can Leos eat Freeze Dried Mealworms and Crickets?

I want to do this for 2 reasons. Its cheaper and they can't escape. =)

[Stewart_Reptiles]

They might if you get one of those vibrating dish otherwise doubtful (mine never have)

I never fed crickets only mealworms and never had any escape (you just need the right dish) and if you breed them yourself which is real easy it will be VERY cheap.

[jfreels]

Breeding your own colony of mealworms is FAR cheaper after you get it going. Leo's generally won't eat anything that doesn't move. Deborah had a good suggestion though, but I've never used one of those dishes.

[cinderbird]

i hate crickets. I had crickets for 5 days before i ordered my roaches. Now, i have self sustaining feeders and dont have to buy anymore.

Dubias are the species I have. They can't climb smooth surfaces (glass or plastic). There is no smell, they don't make any noise. They dont die often at all. I can count the number of dead roaches I've found on one hand and i've had my colony going for almost 8 months.

I did do the mealworm thing. I found them good but i couldnt get the calcium powder to stick to them very well, and i didn't like the chitlin ratio. Now that I've switched to roaches my leos are growing great and i offer them to my other geckos as well. Most people offer them in a dish with calcium powder to get around the non stickyness.

My other biggest problem with the mealies was that they died. Granted, i kept them mostly out of the fridge. I'd give them carrots and gutload them but i experienced enough die off to turn me off from them except for the occasional few hundred to vary things up for my leos. Its not recommended to feed them to cresteds which is the other reason i dont do much with them.

My leos are CRAZY movement driven. I can hand feed them non moving items, but i'd be using up waaay to much time to hand feed them all every other day.

I also have yet to have a mealworm escape, or at least one that I didn't drop lol.

[hunter94]

i hate crickets. I had crickets for 5 days before i ordered my roaches. Now, i have self sustaining feeders and dont have to buy anymore.

Dubias are the species I have. They can't climb smooth surfaces (glass or plastic). There is no smell, they don't make any noise. They dont die often at all. I can count the number of dead roaches I've found on one hand and i've had my colony going for almost 8 months.

I did do the mealworm thing. I found them good but i couldnt get the calcium powder to stick to them very well, and i didn't like the chitlin ratio. Now that I've switched to roaches my leos are growing great and i offer them to my other geckos as well. Most people offer them in a dish with calcium powder to get around the non stickyness.

My other biggest problem with the mealies was that they died. Granted, i kept them mostly out of the fridge. I'd give them carrots and gutload them but i experienced enough die off to turn me off from them except for the occasional few hundred to vary things up for my leos. Its not recommended to feed them to cresteds which is the other reason i dont do much with them.

My leos are CRAZY movement driven. I can hand feed them non moving items, but i'd be using up waaay to much time to hand feed them all every other day.

I also have yet to have a mealworm escape, or at least one that I didn't drop lol.

What kind of dish are you using? And also do you need to gutload the mealworms 24 hours before feeding? Cause at the store they have them in the fridge and they say take them out every week for 1 day and let them eat and then put them back in the fridge.

[piranhaking]

I second the dubias over crickets. I was stuck with the crickets for a few weeks, but the dubias are here now . I also agree, they have very little interest in anything not moving, to the point that sometimes if a cricket stops moving, mine quits payin attention. I doubt the freeze dried would work unless you held them and move them with tweezers or something.

[redstormlax12]

Go with Blatta lateralis aka Turkistan roaches. They are the size of a cricket full grown, prolific breeders, cannot climb smooth surfaces, no smell, no noise. Basically all the advantages of roaches. Dubia roaches are slow breeders and it can take months to get a good colony going, and the initial cost can get pretty pricy compared to the extreme inexpensive turks. And when you have leos why do you want huge roaches? Id rather not have to sift through the colony to get the right sized prey.

[AkHerps]

I have both blatta lateralis and dubias, they are both awesome! I hate crickets, and mealworms are not a very good staple for most reptiles as they have a higher shell to meat ratio. Most leo's also will not eat things that are dead and not moving around. They are quite the great little hunters

I found a site that sells a thousand turks for under 20 bucks. It's the cheapest I've found. Although now I breed Turks and Dubias, but it was good to start a colony with.

[hunter94]

I would rather just get Meal Worms as a staple and make sure they have a good amount of supplements on them.