[usmc]

what should i do with my leo? he wont eat anything but meal worms...any cricket i throw in will die before he eats it and ive been trying pinkies and he wont even look at them. i know an all meal worm diet is bad and i tried not feedign him anything this weekend in hopes hed eat a pinkie but he wont...so i felt bad and threw 5 meal worms in and he attacked them like i would if ID been starvrved for 2 days...hes 7 inches long now so i dont think its a matter of size with the pinkies...what should i do?

[ColdBlooded]

Pinkies aren't exactly good for your leo, either. Stick to bugs.

Personally, I use Dubia roaches as a staple. Never looked back since.

[GeckoGirl1990]

hmm... i wonder if my baby fat tail who only eats crickets would try dubias...

[acpart]

I know all about the "mealworms can be bad" article etc. Most of my adults eat crickets and superworms, but the ones who eat mealworms exclusively are fine as are the friends to whom I've sold geckos and regularly supply with mealworms. Just give it what it wants, and if you want to try other feeders like dubias, butterworms, silkworms, or other stuff then do so and see if the gecko would like some variety.

Aliza

[Jessikah]

Yeah My Boys The Same, I Put Crickets In, He Goes For Them, But If He Misses He Dont Bother Hunting It Again! So He Sticks To The Mealworms And Has A Cricket When He Catches It.
xx

[hyposhawn]

I feed my Leos a staple of mealies. They are perfectly fine, good weight and health. Just don't feed to much at a time. I buy 1000 mealworms at a time from the Flukers website. I feed them cricket gut loading calcium, dog food, and i mist them once a day. I keep them in a large tub in a cold garage to help prevent metamorphism. I dust them in calcium with d3 every other day.

[Let_It_Fade]

my female she will not touch superworms she is very picky she will only eat meal worms. very frustrating it can be at times.

[OffshoreMetal]

I had the opposite problem before. She would eat only Crickets , No mealies. What i did is i got her used to being hand feeded. I hand feeded her 1 cricket every feeding ( i give her about 4 a feeding ). When she got used to being hand feeded , I tried giving her some mealies. She just didnt ate them. So i heavily dusted a mealie and she ate it. Then i just reduced the amount of dusting i put on it every day until she eats non dusted mealies. After a while she got used to them and she now eat them undusted and from the floor ( Not in my hand anymore ).
You should try this with the crickets. I suggest you start with really small crickets ( about the same sixe than the mealies you feed him ), he probably will be more interested if he thinks it is a meal worm.

Good luck.

[Airedale]

Originally Posted by ColdBlooded

Pinkies aren't exactly good for your leo, either. Stick to bugs.

Personally, I use Dubia roaches as a staple. Never looked back since.

Ditto. Dubia work out way better for me. The are more expensive to start with, but once a colony is established for feeding, it will produce for a long time. A superior food source in my opinion.

[BlackIrisReptiles]

I have to agree that when I switched my leos from crickets to mealworms the improvements were many and noticable. They grew exponentially faster and looked healthier. Now I mix it up with small supers and butterworms, but essentially they still eat a lot of mealworms. I just got a couple dubia adult pairs to start a colony, so when those start giving me babies roaches will be added to the list of feeders they get. Anything to try to weed out the darn crickets!

He won't even try butterworms? I swear those things are like crack for my guys. Even the babies that have never had one in their life come running up to them like crazy when they see them and will eat 3-4 happily.