Rhacodactylus feeding discussion

[kimo]

I want to know what others you as food for this genus, for example cresteds. I know there are some commercial foods as CGD and T-REX, but I can't get that so I use insects and fruits/baby food. Actually I want to know how often should they eat fruit and will they find that baby food I serve them anyway before it gets old and dry out? Also I heard from someone that Crested gecko needs more vitamins, like they are sensitive to low levels of some of the vits, is that true? Is it better to give them your own mix of fruits or some quality baby food? Should we avoid some ingredients in baby food or some fruits?

Did someone compare growing rates if they are fed CGD or similar food and insects + fruit(baby food)? At what age they will mature with both feeding regimes?

Sorry for so long post, but I think it is interesting to discuss and hear others oppinions.

 

[Art_Gecko]

IMO the CGD is the best option, as it more or less eliminates problems with supplementation. Have you tried ordering from overseas? try pangeareptile.com and ask them if they will ship to you.

Babyfood and livefoods alone wont give them the vitamins they need no. You must dust the livefoods with a multivitamin supplement (like Nutrabol, or i find 'Treefrog dust' works just as well) every feed, and then you will have to add pure calcium to the babyfood mixture. Females are particularly prone to deficiency from Calcium, as are young geckos and it will lead to very debilitating and potentially live threatening problems.

Crested geckos should not be fed citrus fruits due to the citric acid content. I personally do not like feeding babyfood, as it contains many sugars and preservatives, including citric acid, which is why i cant understand why some people preach about not feeding them citrus fruits, only to feed them babyfoods where it is an additive!! The only babyfood i know of without citric acid and added sugars is called 'Ellas garden' (or something like that). it comes in a foil pouch and has no additives. I would recommend you feed your geckos a mixture of dusted livefoods and mashed up fruits, like banana, fig, mango (with calcium added). I would feed that regime on alternate days, so livefoods one day, and fruit mash the next

As for growth rates etc, i dont know of any studies comparing the diets, but if you go on my website (address is in my signature) and look on the medical health page, there are Xray photographs comparing a gecko fed CGD and a gecko fed supplemented fruit and livefoods

 

[thorrshamri]

Hi Kimo,

I have been keeping and breeding cresteds for a while-well,certainly not as many as some members of this forum.

I have never used any CGD or similar diet and I never had any trouble feeding my cresteds with insects and fruit.

The first important thing is to correctly gut-load your insects prior to feeding.I generally use crickets as a diet but i also give mealworms ,silkworms and waxmoths larvae from time to time to vary this diet.

I also use different fruits in baby food-peach ,banana ,apricot ,pear ,apple...
To give this food to the rhacs,I use bamboo tubes in which i fit a metal lid from the baby food pots and fill it with this very food By doing so ,cresteds don't have to go down at ground level in their viv to find the food .So to me offering a varied food is the second key to success.

The third very important point is to choose a good supplement,which can turn out to be quite difficult.

Insects are already very unbalanced with the Ca/P ratio and you must not use a powdered supplement with extra phosphore ,it does not make any sense. The supplements are also very often either too poor in variety of vitamins or minerals or overdosed with some vitamins,especially D3.

Too much calcium can lead to stones in kidneys in every vertebrate ,and too much vitamins can be more harmful on the long term that not enough.

That is why I use only Miner-All I,T-Rex 2:0 or a new product I found in Hamm ,made in Germany ,CALCAmineral. Other supplements are not fit for geckoes ,to my mind.

I think this is by far the more natural method ,although it demands a little more money and efforts for the keeper than using CGD as the basic food item .Snakes can be fed the same type of prey all their life long ,geckos don't .One day or another ,the lack of variety in their diet could make them fed up and refuse to eat any more.

More,the variety in fruit and properly gut-loaded insects is to me enough to avoid deficiencies .

On top of that,babies fed too early with vitamins will generally die or have serious health issues .I never give any extra vitamins before 3 months old.

CGD has been existing only for a few years .Scientifically speaking ,it is too short a time to evaluate the long-term consequences of an all-CGD diet .While insects and fruit do exist for million years :lol: .We ignore the influence on the lifespan and lineages of the geckos ,we don't know if after 8 years of CGD they still want it so eagerly in a significant number of cases.

It is certainly more handy and has less drawbacks for the keepers than always having tons of crickets at home but I would only use such ready-made food as an occasional treat ,when crickets are not available ,for example.

This is just my opinion and own experience ,I think we the Europeans may have a different approach than the US keepers .Hope that helps a little.

 

[rodekuhr]

I just wanted to add my knowledge which is only a few years of geckos but I have had a lot of eggs and all healthy geckos. I have used cgd and crickets in the past but for about the past year have used very few crickets and used mostly different types of roaches and cgd on alternating schedules. All of my geckos love the roaches with some geckos preferring a certain kind of roach over the others. If you don't mind keeping roaches it will keep down the cost of food as they are self sustaining and don't die and smell like crickets do. My geckos immediately go for the roaches when they are given to them. If you can get them where you are I highly recommend them they have much better nutritional values than crickets.

 

[LadyGecko10]

I totally agree-roaches are the perfect feeder insect imo
Especially the non-climbing ones

The great thing about having a colony is that you always just the right sizes for everyone

I haven't been keeping Rhacs as long as I have been keeping the other geckos (mainly Leos and AFT's ) that I have but I have had wonderful results with using the CGD along with insects

:biggrin:

I just wanted to add my knowledge which is only a few years of geckos but I have had a lot of eggs and all healthy geckos. I have used cgd and crickets in the past but for about the past year have used very few crickets and used mostly different types of roaches and cgd on alternating schedules. All of my geckos love the roaches with some geckos preferring a certain kind of roach over the others. If you don't mind keeping roaches it will keep down the cost of food as they are self sustaining and don't die and smell like crickets do. My geckos immediately go for the roaches when they are given to them. If you can get them where you are I highly recommend them they have much better nutritional values than crickets.

 

[thorrshamri]

Yes,mixing live insects with such food could be a good diet. I was only objecting against a whole CGD diet. Unfortunately roaches are expensive here and I don't want to take the risk to have some escaped roaches in my place

 

[kimo]

Ok, thanks everybody!

I was also suspicious about CGD diet, so I wanted to go more natural way...I keep and breed 4 species of roaches, along with crickets, superworms and mealworms, so I will surely have to offer the best variety. I can also give mashed fruits it is not a problem to me, but I need to know what exact ratio of fruits should I mix or only give in one feeding one sort of fruits? I feed all my insects apples, carrot and other vegetables and frutis everyday and they always have some quality protein foods, so I think they are fed almost better then I am

For dusting I use pure Ca powder without P every feeding I dust some insects and not whole, only half of the body for example, and now and then, about every week once, I dust insects with Zoo-meds Reptivite and most rarely Nekton MSA(German product, very good with D3 and 26%Ca and other minerals), what do you think about this, is that ok? I Never had problems with other geckos and lizard this way, but I am not so experienced in breeding as in keeping them...

My last questions for now, is how often should Cresteds eat fruit mix and how often should I offer Ca and vitamins? What fruits are you giving them and they eat?

 

[thorrshamri]

That sounds great Kimo.
It would be better to feed roaches and crickets with oranges,dog or cat pellets and corn flakes without sugar,those food items are more balanced as regards Ca/P ratio and also hold a lot of good proteins.
Otherwise that sounds perfect .
I feed my own rhacs (adults) twice a week with insects ,as much as they can eat in an hour,and once a week with fruit-based baby food. Hope that is helpful to you.