CGD and MRPs--information?

[WingedWolfPsion]

I'm curious to know whether folks have attempted to raise Phelsuma on CGD at any point--if so, what were the results? It clearly isn't being commonly done at this point...is this because no one has done an extended feeding trial, or was it found that the geckos do not do well on it? If they did not thrive on it, what problems arose? Do people continue to feed insects 'just to be safe', or was it found that the day geckos truly require them?

T-Rex is touting their Day Gecko MRP as a total replacement diet for day geckos. Has anyone tested this out?

Zoo-Med also has a day gecko diet, but it is less clear whether this is intended as a total meal replacement.

I understand Clarks also makes a MRP, including a high-protein gargoyle gecko diet that some have mentioned using for their day geckos. Experiences?

 

[KaeJS]

Short Answer:

Phelsumas can live on only CGD and/or MRP.
(CGD and MRP are basically the same thing)
They will not develop any deficiencies or diseases.

However, you probably wouldn't be a very good "gecko parent" if that's all you fed your gecko for its entire life.

I feed CGD and MRP often. But I also feed crickets and fruit flies because I wouldnt want to be fed bread and water for the next 10 years...

EDIT: What I mean by CGD and MRP being basically the same is that CGD is Crested Gecko Diet and MRP stands for Meal Replacement Powder. CGD is a Meal Replacement Powder specifically for Rhacodactylus. However, there are MRP's for various geckos, although many of them are typically the same. Thus, CGD is meant for Crested Geckos (Rhacodactylus species) but the Rhacodactylus species and the Phelsuma species are not different in terms of nutritional needs, they just come from different parts of the world and have different temperature requirements.

 

[WingedWolfPsion]

Good to know! (I'm not actually sure it would be too terrible for them, considering the fact that the two-part diet comes in a wide variety of different flavors).

 

[hexentanz]

I must agree with KaeJS, esp on the bread and water comment. I see this even if you add different flavors. It would be like having white bread and water one day and wheat and water the next. Not so yummy if you ask me.

To add to this, I could also see some very fat geckos if not watched carefully. Hunting for insects does help them to lose some weight. Plus if you wanted to ever sell any the people would have to use the same diet or go through a great bit of training with insects if they preferred to use those and some geckos can be quite picky.

 

[WingedWolfPsion]

While true in some aspects, crested geckos themselves appear to be thriving on diets of CGD alone, and it seems the standard is to feed CGD with just a few insects a couple of times a week thrown in for variety--many don't feed insects at all.

I can also see the concern with weight, my little lygos have turned quite round since I added the CGD to their diet--this is good, because they were imports and I'm going to be breeding them, but if I had one as just a pet, I'd probably be thinking about how to keep it trim. Of course, reducing the quantity of food offered could accomplish that too.

The primary question I wanted answered, though, was 'is it healthy'--as a pro breeder, I want to give the animals the healthiest diet possible, and CGD is most certainly simple and convenient--if I'm giving it to one animal, it's hardly more complicated to give it to a whole bunch.

If it's an acceptable diet for Phelsumas, and can keep them healthy, this is good evidence that it may be acceptable for my Lygos. This makes me feel more secure in doing feeding trials with the hatchlings a few months down the road. Being able to maintain them on CGD with a few insects for variety would be a great deal easier than trying to provide a huge variety of tiny insects.

 

[KaeJS]

The primary question I wanted answered, though, was 'is it healthy'

CGD/MRP is probably the healthiest thing to feed.

You have to remember that like human food, all foods have different nutrients, such as - crickets have the most crude protein, but mealworms and such have more fat to them. This goes to show that if you fed mealworms all the time, your geckos would be getting more fat and less protein, etc. etc. And this is true of all insects. In the wild, geckos eat whatever they can find (including other geckos!) so their diet is really varied which allows them access to differing amount of nutrients.

Since CGD/MRP is formulated with certain amounts of calcium, crude protein, water, etc. I think its safe to say that CGD/MRP is the healthiest, most convenient and economically sound source of food.

And yes, there are different flavours, which is good to switch up every now and then if your gecko(s) are not picky.

As for having geckos that will not switch back to insects, I don't believe in that.

Geckos aren't as psychologically screwed up as humans. If a gecko is starving and sees an insect - its going to get it. Unlike those human vegetarians that refuse meat. (Sorry to all you vegans out there, but seriously...)

So, in short:

Yes, CGD/MRP would be healthy. But your breeding pair could turn out to be obese like a 13 year old American kid on the McDonalds diet. (As I sit here with a bag of chips...:biggrin

 

[hexentanz]

Breeding animals should also never be kept 'well rounded', just as any human should not be. As this poses additional health risks too.

Another thing to think about btw. Someone just starting out with geckos may turn down an animal where an expensive diet is needed esp if it will be 'just a pet' while getting them used to other foods.

Some in general may feel this way about these new diets. I know i was shocked at first when I saw the prices, but then hey I am jobless atm. Still despite this factor I plan to get a hold of some when I go to the USA at the end of March. :biggrin:

------

Btw I did not mean that they never would switch back to insects, I meant it may be hard at first.

Grrrrrrrrr..... *eddddit again because someone keeps talking to me while I try to type.. ahhhh the joys of add.

 

[WingedWolfPsion]

The little lygos and smaller Phelsumas, though, keeping them fed on insects is quite a challenge, and it would be relatively expensive for someone who had one just as a pet--it's impractical not to culture the fruit flies, and the cultures are pretty expensive to start, if not pricey to maintain. You can't just feed them nothing but tiny crickets, and pet stores don't stock mealworms that small. You need the gutloads and the dusting powders.

I think the reason the smaller lizards aren't more popular is because of all this--the challenge of keeping them fed. One packet of CGD goes a LONG way feeding these little guys. You only need to mix up something like 1/2 teaspoon of powder a day, tops, and that's just to prevent it from drying out before nightfall.

I mean, I just ordered supplies to start raising silkworms--that's hardly cheap, and they're some of the best feeders available. Raising silkworms is almost more work than raising the lizards...<lol>

CGD may be expensive if you're feeding it to Leachies, but it's not expensive if you're feeding it to small lizards.

 

[hexentanz]

Hrm... yes I do always forget how expensive starter cultures can be over there compared to here. For example I hear you guys sometimes pay 10 dollars for a starter culture of fruitflies. I shudder to think how expensive the supplements can be. :/

 

[WingedWolfPsion]

$10? Try $15 to $20. Actually, I paid $36 for a complete kit with extra cups and media, and a starter culture.

The CGD really isn't that expensive.

 

[hexentanz]

$10? Try $15 to $20. Actually, I paid $36 for a complete kit with extra cups and media, and a starter culture.

The CGD really isn't that expensive.

Hah.. Okay if I had to pay that much for media etc. I would for certain be making homemade blends from potato flakes ,applesauce, etc all the time.

Though why buy cups when you can use old jars?

 

[WingedWolfPsion]

I liked the cups, they have lids with fine paper over them that keep out the wild fruit flies. I'll probably be making my own media too when this runs out, but the flies themselves cost the most of out of it all.

 

[PhelsumaUK]

Can anyone show me a detailed study and breakdown of the nutritional intake for Phelsuma in the wild?

 

[WingedWolfPsion]

It's a huge assumption that such a study has ever been done. It's not at all unusual that most of what's known about herp nutrition comes from captive studies. I shudder to think how such a study would be conducted in the wild--most likely by examining the gut contents of wild caught Phelsuma, which of course means killing them.

 

[colinmelsom]

A few years ago I raised P.laticauda to adulthood on Zoomeds Day Gecko Food.They attained adulthood very quickly but I dont know whether this was due to the food or due to the species.I did this because I did not have enough small feeder insects at the time.
However,they became very obese and would not take live food.This diet is supposed to be used in conjunction with livefood.Now I make sure that I have feeder insects available and they seem slimmer and healthier.

 

[WingedWolfPsion]

Did you try restricting their intake, or feeding less frequently?

 

[colinmelsom]

I did feed less frequently and tried to get them onto livefood.

 

[WingedWolfPsion]

Ok, that was the ZooMed diet, which is lower in protein (presumably) than the CGD. Of course, if CGD actually works ok as a total MRP for day geckos, it won't matter if they don't take insects while on it.

 

[PhelsumaUK]

It's a huge assumption that such a study has ever been done. .

and that's my point. Phelsuma MRPs are based on what someone thinks might make a good diet, not on the specific needs of Phelsuma (or an average across the species). You can see the protein content varies between 10-25% across the brands..that's a big difference..Which is closer to the correct requirement? How important are fats/lipids in the diet? Do MRPs contain too much or too little? Phelsuma drink nectar. What's the proportion of it in their total diet in the wild? So what should the carbohydrate percentage be and how much of it should be as simple sugars?

I'm not knocking the use of MRPs because they make a contribution as part of a varied diet but I think we're far from the stage of being able to accept that they can be a healthy complete diet in themselves. Surviving and breeding isn't a full measure of an ideal recipe (lots of people seem to manage on burgers and beer!). I suspect that some of the difficult issues in captive breeding are diet related.

You're right that the improvements will come from experimentation in captive breeding. There's also scope for observation of feeding patterns in the wild. How much of the time are they drinking nectar, how often are they catching insects..what sort of insects..what do the insects feed on. Do they really eat snails and ants. Are ants a sizable part of the diet..could the acidic nature of these be important? How much does plant sap feature in the diet? How frequently are smaller lizards eaten? ...so many questions to answer..and it probably varies between species

 

[WingedWolfPsion]

I think it's a sure bet that wild geckos don't always have access to flower nectars in the wild, and that their diet probably does consist primarily of insects in some areas. So it's a question of how adaptable they are to higher proportions of such things in their diet. Protein content in CGD has just been lowered slightly due to a nutritional breakdown conducted by a major zoo. We can guess that day geckos might benefit from more protein than that, but it would be just a guess. So, a zoo was willing to feed CGD to their own Leachies--that's a fairly good endorsement for it. But Rhacs aren't Phelsuma.

I personally think that long-term feeding trials are the only way to go in order to determine the best diet. We can't hope to duplicate a wild diet, and anything we do to approximate it in captivity is going to be lacking, simply because we have such a limited selection of insects and other things to offer them. So, we have to do the best to try to meet their optimal nutritional needs, instead. If it turns out that CGD does that better than insects and fruit mixes, then it's the right way to go--if it doesn't, then we need to figure out why, so we can come up with a proper combination.

Feeding insects along with the CGD is pretty hit-or-miss. We can't predict how many insects the animal will eat that day, and we don't have a complete picture of the nutritional profile of the insects, to know how it's going to affect their complete diet. I personally feel the Phelsuma-specific MRPs are probably not as well-researched or balanced when fed according to instruction as the CGD is.

So, it's not a question of whether they can grow, survive, and breed on an MRP diet, but whether they maintain normal health and condition over a long period of time, in addition to all of that. There is only one way to find out, and that's to try it, and see if any problems ever arise.

CGD might prove not to be the optimal diet for Phelsuma, but it might prove to be an acceptable diet for them, possibly one that can't be improved on much in captivity apart from creating a more tailored MRP.

I'm just asking for peoples' personal experiences with using MRPs--when they're used according to instructions. Eyewitness accounts and experiences are the best way I can think of to evaluate their suitability.