Caring for the live food for your Leo.

[bwoodfield]

How do you care for your food for your leo oke:? We feed Buffy both meal worms and crickets.

The meal worms we put in a small rubber maid container with oatmeal (quick oats type) and the odd piece of carrot. I don't like putting carrots in too often because I find if it's not all eaten within a day or two it can start to mold. The really cool thing about meal worms is that if you're into composting, the left over "digested material" can be dumped directly into your compost bin.

I keep the crickets in a large rubber maid with slits cut into the top and egg carton pieces spread around. For food I given them a mixture of different things including oatmeal, whole grain (non-sugared) cereals, and dry cat/dog food if I can get if from family friends. I will also add in chopped up carrots, leafy greens (lettuce, spinach, celery, etc) and the odd piece of orange or apple for moisture. Put the dry and moist foods on different sides else they will cause mold. Also don't put a bowl of water in with them because you will be picking dead crickets out of it daily. I've heard of other people using gelatin crystals that you add water to.

We only have 1 leopard gecko (for the moment :biggrin so we don't breed or keep a lot of meal worms of crickets on hand. At most about a 100 meal worms and 50 crickets, then just go buy more as needed.

What kind of creepy crawlies do you have and how do you care for them? :feedback:

 

[lanismama]

Besides the occasional super worms (I can only get the small ones when I volunteer at the petco 45 minutes away, my local pet stores only have gigantic ones), Lani eats crickets. I keep them in a kritter keeper with bark to climb on. For water, I drop a wet cotton ball in every few days. They're mostly fed freeze-dried meal worms (originally bought for Lani when I first got him, but of course he won't touch them) and the occasional carrot. I generally buy about 100 crickets at a time so we have enough for a couple weeks.

 

[TifaBea]

I use a ziploc tupperware with tiny holes punched in the top for my crickets. I then put flukers cricket quencher in a pop cap and gut load in another cap. Sometimes I'll place papertowel in the bottom for hiding and easier cleanup. But most of the time I just throw the tupperware away and start over with each batch of crickets I buy. I was only purchasing approx. 2 dozen crickets at one time but then my juvenile decided to start eating a lot so I'm going to step it up to about 50 to 100.

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

This is what I do:

Feeding crickets and roaches
Feed crickets/roaches food that provides no more than 20% protein and no more than 5% crude fat. Some choices are:
Chicken Laying Mash (feed store)
Fluker Farms High Calcium Cricket Feed
Dry oatmeal
Alfalfa hay (for the 3 wo and older crix)
Collard greens (especially recommended for the high calcium-to-low phosphorous ratio)
Carrots (natural source of beta carotene)

For more information feeding the feeders, go to Maurice Pudlo's sticky in the Geckos Unlimited Feeders, Food & Nutrition subforum: http://www.geckosunlimited.com/comm...rition/49403-feeder-insect-diets-gutload.html

Cricket Care
For crickets I place a supply of the food mentioned above on the bottom of an extra large Kritter Keeper or a plastic 56 quart Sterilite container, add the crickets, add two layers of egg flats, and top with a paper towel. Keep these crickets at room temperature. Spray the paper towel about every other day for moisture or more frequently if the room is hot. Using these methods it is easy to keep crickets alive for a month or so post purchase.

Roach Care
I keep Blaptica dubia in a ten gallon tank with 5 vertically positioned egg flats. The above-mentioned food can be kept in shallow lids to one side of the egg flats. For moisture I dampen a clean medium-size sponge and occasionally spray the flats. In a room which ranges from 67 F/19.5 C upwards, I keep a 40 watt bulb in a reflector dome directly over the screened tank and on 24/7.

 

[Allee Toler]

My mealworms and superworm colonies are the same. A 3 tier tub drawer system on wheels for each species. Bottom is full of beetles, middle is full of pupae, top is full of worms that are growing up/out to feeder size or to pupate. Supers have film canisters to promote pupating when they're big enough. Fed apples and carrots. All are kept on a mix of oatmeal and cornmeal, 50/50, blended in a blender. Cornmeal keeps it from getting too dusty.

My roaches are in a 10gal long tank. Bed a beast on the bottom. Fed apples and carrots, with dog food kept on the bottom.

All the waste is mixed with the old bed a beast/roach outs, then mixed 50/50 with potting soil for my garden. My apple tree is very healthy.

 

[bwoodfield]

Bottom is full of beetles, middle is full of pupae, top is full of worms that are growing up/out to feeder size or to pupate.

So do you feed the beetle form of the meal worms? I found one roaming around the tank the other day and 'guided' it toward Buffy. She ate it after it walked over her foot a couple of times. It really kicked up a fight. Crickets will wiggle their legs a couple of times while they're being eaten but this thing kept kicking the whole time. Think it took her by surprise because she jumped a little when first crunching down and it started kicking. Shook her head a few times crunched down a bunch of times really quickly then swallowed. She lazed around on the warm spot in her tank for awhile then crawled back into her moist hide.

 

[Allee Toler]

I don't feed the beetles.

 

[LzzrdBoy]

My main feeders are mealies. After growing tired of spending $ on them I began a colony of my own. As with the poster above mine is a 3 drawer cart with beetles, mealies, and pupae each in their own drawer. I too use a combination of quick oats and cornmeal but also add bran and wheat flour from time to time. 2-3 times weekly I throw in several pieces of potatoes and carrots as well as an apple now and then. Paper towels are used in the beetles drawer to facilitate egg-laying and when the towel is full, I simply move it to the mealies drawer where the new little babies can hatch and play with all their big brother and sister mealies. As the pupae finish up their cycle I manually move them to the mealworm drawer as well. And from there it's just a matter of keeping the cycle going.

I started my colony in Oct. of 2010 and now have more than 2000 mealworms on hand along with 500 or so beetles.

 

[bwoodfield]

I don't feed the beetles.

But do you feed the beetles to your geckos?

 

[Allee Toler]

But do you feed the beetles to your geckos?

No. I don't feed the beetles.

 

[LzzrdBoy]

But do you feed the beetles to your geckos?

When I end up with too many beetles which happens every few weeks, I give them to my buddy 3 houses down and he feeds them to his Blue Tongue Skink. You should see that thing chase those little suckers around his tank. He'll easily eat 10 in less than 2 minutes. But personally, NO, I do not feed my Gecko any of the beetles. Yucky!

 

[bwoodfield]

Ok... If I find any more... SQUISH!

 

[Saskia]

Actually I have read that the beetles are not very nutritional, and a little hard to the digestive system of the leos because of the hard exoesquelleton, I wouldn't recommend to feed leos with the beetles.... I have a colony of mealworms of my own and exactly today a vet friend gave me about 50 small crickets and I am going to start a cricket colony as well.... for the mealworms I use a mixture of cat food, oatmeal, flour, baby food (the powder you mix with water to feed human babies, don't know the name in english), bran and bread, put it all in the blender and blend for a while until it is all pretty much powder, I have in a 6 gall tupperware, it makes a 3 inch deep substrate... in top of the substrate I put a piece of plastic mesh and on the mesh I put a paper towel which I moist everyday, and sometimes I put (also in top of the mesh) a piece of carrot, potatoe, tomatoe, apple, watermellon, orange, or any other vegetable, I usually remove the vegetables after a few days... this "system" has worked pretty well, I started in early 2.010 with 30 mealworms and have several hundreds now... With the crickets I am just starting today (one of the reasons why this thread took my attention was that I actually need advise on crickets), so I am setting them up this instant.... for now I have a couple egg cartons and dog food in a glass tank, I'll read some more before I finally make the set up for the crickets...

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Actually I have read that the beetles are not very nutritional, and a little hard to the digestive system of the leos because of the hard exoesquelleton, I wouldn't recommend to feed leos with the beetles.... I have a colony of mealworms of my own and exactly today a vet friend gave me about 50 small crickets and I am going to start a cricket colony as well.... for the mealworms I use a mixture of cat food, oatmeal, flour, baby food (the powder you mix with water to feed human babies, don't know the name in english), bran and bread, put it all in the blender and blend for a while until it is all pretty much powder, I have in a 6 gall tupperware, it makes a 3 inch deep substrate... in top of the substrate I put a piece of plastic mesh and on the mesh I put a paper towel which I moist everyday, and sometimes I put (also in top of the mesh) a piece of carrot, potatoe, tomatoe, apple, watermellon, orange, or any other vegetable, I usually remove the vegetables after a few days... this "system" has worked pretty well, I started in early 2.010 with 30 mealworms and have several hundreds now... With the crickets I am just starting today (one of the reasons why this thread took my attention was that I actually need advise on crickets), so I am setting them up this instant.... for now I have a couple egg cartons and dog food in a glass tank, I'll read some more before I finally make the set up for the crickets...

Saskia ~

I do NOT advise feeding dog, cat, puppy, kitten food to any of your feeders! Your geckos are what they eat. All should receive a diet of no more than 20% protein and no more than 5% fat.

I share this caution from experience. When I fed my crickets dog and cat food samples and Tetramin Fish Flakes among other foods, one of my leos, a mature male, died from severe hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease).

Breeding crickets is a bit harder, but it can be done. For feeders I just keep crickets at room temperature. To breed them you will need higher temperatures.

 

[Saskia]

Saskia ~

I do NOT advise feeding dog, cat, puppy, kitten food to any of your feeders! Your geckos are what they eat. All should receive a diet of no more than 20% protein and no more than 5% fat.

I share this caution from experience. When I fed my crickets dog and cat food samples and Tetramin Fish Flakes among other foods, one of my leos, a mature male, died from severe hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease).

Breeding crickets is a bit harder, but it can be done. For feeders I just keep crickets at room temperature. To breed them you will need higher temperatures.

I believe this would be a very interesting issue to discuss, I have a breeder friend (Breeds leos) who gets all his leos used to eating ONLY cat food.... he has been a breeder for about 15 years now.... could be that this issue is different with every gecko?? I just read the label of the cat food I use (just to be super sure) and it has 15% protein and 5% fat, the dog food is very different, but I don't use it, it has 21% protein and 10% fat........ Have you seen the differences between dog and cat food?? I believe cat food doesn't sound so bad...
Actually the mealworm has 20% protein and 16% fat.... sounds even a lot worse than cat food (fatwise)..... what do you think?? (I have a struggle in my mind with mealworms because meny people say they are not good, and I have seen it with my baby leo, because he didn't digest them, but on the other hand RON TREMPER, who is one of the worlds most important leoprd gecko breeders, and the creator of many many morphs we see today, in his Big Book "THE HERPETOCULTURE OF LEOPARD GECKOS" Which is my #1 consulting manual, he says that in his nearly 30 years breeding geckos he only feeds them mealworms and has had no problems.... :scratchhead: ) I am very eager to learn and keep my leos as good as possible!! So, please comment!!!