Crestie Questions!

[wendyhoo9]

How often do I feed them? Every other day?

Everyone does have their own system, but I hear most people offer some sort of food daily.

I've heard some people only feed baby food, but feed the fruit and food with more protein in it like mashed turkey baby food etc. If I feed crickets I dust them with calcium, but how many do I feed at one sitting and how often during the week?

I feed crickets 5 -6 days of the week dusted with calcium (minus D3) and crested gecko diet (cgd) 3 of the days and the other 2 - 3 days I dust with the same calcium, reptivite w/ D3, and cgd. Too much D3 can be toxic so make sure only one of your vitamin supplement or calcium supplement have it.

I usually offer 5 - 10 appropriately sized crickets (size of the widest part of the geckos head, though mine will each larger than this at times) per gecko and leave them overnight. The extras I remove in the morning.

The days I'm not feeding crickets with dusted supplements, I feed soupy cgd or baby food as a treat. Some of mine won't touch either of these and hold out for the crickets the next night but others love it. If their getting enough cgd and/or crickets mixing meat into the fruit baby food probably isn't necessary.

Or the T-Rex food...do they carry it at Petsmart/Petco?

Most all I have seen do.

-I know the tank should be taller than wider and not too big, but do I feed them in their tank or out of it? I'll probably use newspaper for substrate because I have a phobia about my animals accidentally swallowing some of it.

I feed in the tank, I tried removing them to make sure each was eating enough but that was stressful on everyone. Instead I purchased a scale and weigh them every other of week. I use papertowels myself, easy to clean up and no impaction worries (though those dang crickets will hold on to papertowels like there's no tomorrow so I remove them during feeding).

-Handling cresties. Are they flighty? I would be afraid of them scuttling away and me not wanting to hurt them. Yes, I can handle 6 foot boas but forget a little gecko

Babies are usually more jumpy than adults but mine settled in quite nicely after a few days of handling them. Just don't put them straight back in their enclosure if they get fidegty. Hand walk them, let them settle down and learn that you won't eat them. You can almost always tell when they're about to jump b/c they bunch up before they do. Also, may be a good idea to handle them first in a room that's easy to locate a maurading gecko.

Hope that helps, I have a 3 year old begging my attention and don't have time to proof read!!

Good luck!