Leopard Questions for a friend and myself !

[Brandon.O]

My friend has Recently purchased a leopard gecko, He really hates the idea of crickets, he says theyre messy, loud, smelly etc,etc

I guess someone told him that feeding a diet of mealworms dusted with vitamin powder is just as good and easier

Is this True ? Is there any way he can get away with a vitamin dusted mealworm only diet and still have a healthy gecko ?


Now i have some questions of my own.....

Most sources say that baby leo's are hard to sex.......how can you tell which sex is which.....Lets say you wanted to breed them, it would be a huge pain to figure out later on down the road that you have two females and or two males...

Whats the deal with this ? Ive seen some breeders listing hatchlings as male and female, how do they tell the difference at such a young age?

[Montee]

as far as the sexing goes. Most breeders will incubate for different sexes.

Here's some good reading.

http://www.vmsherp.com/LCBreedingLeopards.htm

as far as the crickets, I recently switched to phoenix worms, and from what I understand a lot of people feed mealworms or phoenix worms as main diets. So yes, you could get away with feeding mainly supplemented mealworms.

[snakedude56]

Yea I would go with pheonix worms too, they have tons of calcium and don't need to be supplemented except for maybe some vitamins I'm not sure. And as for the sexing you can't really tell until they're at least a month old. Males have a v shaped array of pores that are clearly noticeable when they come of age. If you look in the leo section of the forums there is a sticky on sexing them at the very top that has pics too.

[mlededee]

you can sex leos as young as one month of age but sometime that young you need a jewelers loupe to help you see any pores. by 3-4 months of age it is very obvious and males should be separated before they approach sexual maturity as they will fight. males and females should also be separated at this time in order to avoid them breeding too early. (females that are bred too early can becoming egg-bound and have other issues, many of which can be fatal.) here is the sticky on sexing with pics: http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...ad.php?t=42968.

phoenix worms are great and can be fed in addition to mealworms. silkworms are also a good choice.

[Argentra]

For food, you can't go wrong with the worms! Quiet, don't really smell at all, easy to maintain... they're great! I'm about to switch my adult Leo over to exclusive worms (of different types for occasional variety of course).

[Brandon.O]

Awesome ! Thats really good news for him, he was totally bummed about crickets ( i guess his gecko wasnt too fond of them either)

Who knows.....maybe ill be getting one soon.....but then again a new albino boa just left a big black hole in my bank account, so maybe not !!