What To Feed Your Gecko?

Feeding your gecko with the right food is essential to maintaining a healthy, active, and alert pet. Just like us, geckos need a balanced diet too in order to become physically fit. It's wrong to feed them with anything we want. On this guide, you'll learn about your options when it comes to feeding your pet.

What Foods Do They Eat?

Most types of geckos eat insects as their staple food. Whether it's leopard, Tokay, or crested geckos - they all love insects. These include crickets, mealworms, wax worms, locusts, and silkworms. Many pet owners usually choose crickets because it comes complete with all the nutrients that a gecko needs. Aside from this, crickets are widely available in most pet shops and they cost a lot cheaper. Such insects are very versatile as well. Placing a few crickets everyday inside your gecko's tank can help your pet improve its hunting skills as they find moving objects really attractive. But here's something you should remember: DON'T put a lot of crickets inside the terrarium! These insects can get very aggressive especially when they're hungry. And when that happens, they may bite your gecko which can cause wounds of course. But if you're leaving for a day or two and no one's going to oversee your gecko, its okay to feed your pet with more crickets but it's advisable to leave some grated apple in the tank so the crickets would have something to feed on. When it's not hungry, your gecko will less likely appreciate crickets so it may simply ignore it. It's also important that you check the tank once in a while from any dead crickets or leftovers. It isn't ideal to feed geckos (particularly Tokay geckos) with dried crickets because for them, dead crickets are not very attractive.

But you want to make some diversity with your pet's daily diet. Geckos are also looking for something new just like humans. Just imagine having hotdogs in one straight week for breakfast. Isn't that so boring? Another good feeding option for geckos is the mealworm. You can place a small bowl of mealworm inside the tank. However, mealworms have thick skin so they may be hard to digest. If you're feeding young Tokay or leopard geckos, make sure they're only eating small-sized mealworms so they don't run the risk of digestive issues. While wax worms can be very fascinating for many geckos, you shouldn't make it as their regular meal. This type of food is very high in fats which may trigger the onset of future health problems.

Supplementation

For optimum health, it's always best to supplement your gecko with some vitamins and minerals that can be purchased over the counter. Examples are calcium, vitamin D3, and the like. Before you feed your Tokay or leopard with crickets, you want to feed the crickets first at least 24 hours prior to them being fed to your pet. It's what you call gut-loading. You want to feed the insects with lots of proteins, vitamins, and minerals so your gecko will get the same nutrients too. You can also feed them with fruits like oranges for added vitamin C.

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