Feeding Dubia to Leos...

[emilykay405]

I got my starter colony yesterday and I had a few questions about feeding.

How many do adult leos normally eat? Yesterday when I fed them I stopped offering the nymphs at 3 in case Cleo (our biggest..) was just being a porker.

How do you normally feed them? Let the nymphs loose in the terrarium or feed leos individually? Aparently one of the nymphs didn't get eaten yesterday and I found it trucking around the house this AM.

Also too...I have an Exo Terra 36Lx18dx18h and I'm getting escapees...not only the dubia but crickets are climbing up the supplied background and getting loose. Any suggestions to stopping this?

 

[M&S-328]

If you are going to feed your leos by placing the insects right into the tank, then you probably should watch till they all get eaten, otherwise youll end up with the insects eating the cricket poo and then getting eaten by the leos (very unhealthy), escapees, and irritated leos (you wouldnt wanna live with chickens or lobsters running around you 24/7 before you got hungry and killed one to eat. lol). So personally I think hand feeding or bowl feeding (this can be done with mealworms and crickets if you take off their back legs) is the best way to go.

Also, if you REALLYYYYY want to just toss in the insects and go, Id suggest you get a tank screen top. These can be found separate from the tank (as in you dont have to buy a whole new tank, you can just purchase these tops..lol) at a local petco or petsmart, at either of their online stores, etc. online. So ya, just pickup one of these screen tops and place it on and then your crickets and roaches shouldnt be able to get through.

 

[M&S-328]

oh, and for feeding your leos:

You can give them nymphs "as much as they want", even 10+ is fine if they eat them all.

For full grown adults, probably stick to about 4-7. All leos eat different amounts and burn off fat differently too, and most figure out when to stop eating once they are full. So unless you see one of your leos getting very obese, then they can eat all they want - if they did get obese just cut about 25% off their normal meal.

 

[emilykay405]

oh, and for feeding your leos:

You can give them nymphs "as much as they want", even 10+ is fine if they eat them all.

For full grown adults, probably stick to about 4-7. All leos eat different amounts and burn off fat differently too, and most figure out when to stop eating once they are full. So unless you see one of your leos getting very obese, then they can eat all they want - if they did get obese just cut about 25% off their normal meal.

Awesome. Thanks for the help. I assumed with the exo terra top that the crickets wouldn't be able to get out....but I was SO WRONG. :yikes:

I'll probably just keep hand feeding because I'm switching to dubias/mealworms (I have two that refuse to eat anything but mealworms at this point...but I'm still working on 'em).