Could one of the mealworm haters explain this for me please??

[Saskia]

Good day!!

I have had geckos for 9 years (only leos), and I have been breeding them for the past 3 years, succesfully hatching a few dozen babies.... For food I do this:

During the first one or two months I feed them small mealworms, because they are easier for the gecko to eat, I always feed on a dish, properly dusted mealworms, and I believe I do gutload my mealworms... why? because their bedding is cat food, not bran as most people use, anyways, I also breed roaches which I use to feed the juveniles and adults, I also have a big back yard where I collect grasshoppers/locusts almost every day to provide more variety to my geckos, I also use calcium (with and without D3), they have UTH, paper towels as a substrate, etc etc, I have been very lucky so far, the only gecko I have had sick was an adopted one that was sick when I got him... all my babies have been very healthy, and are all alive, fat and gorgeous!... anyways, as always there are some picky eaters, this year I have 2 babies that have caught my attention...

I have read a lot of information regarding mealworms, and why they are a bad staple diet, in fact that's why I started breeding roaches, anyways, this year the last 2 eggs I hatched were 2 beautiful geckos when they were born, I always weight my geckos when they hatch, they both hatched on july 23rd weighing 3 grames, the eggs had been incubating together for 51 days... I usually house siblings together the first few weeks, and this time it was no exception, I bought a new tupper, 14 gallon for both babies, because their big brothers were too big to house them with, so, I bought a new container just for the 2 of them...

When they had been together for 10-11 days I noticed that one of the babies was significantly larger than the other one, one was still 3 grames and the other was nearly 6!! I thaught that the big baby was bullying the other one and not allowing him to eat, and therefor I separated them, bought another tupper, a 10 gall. and separated them, they have been housed alone ever since...

I started puting small mealworms in a dish for both babies separately, and a couple days later when cleaning the small babies's tank I found all the mealworms hiding under the paper towel! He wasn't eating! I got nervous but immediately tried a different feeder, I offered very small grasshoppers, amputating their back legs so the tiny baby could catch them, he immediately ate, so, I figured he didn't like mealworms...

From that day on I have given him 4-6 small-medium sized grasshoppers every day, I catch the grasshoppers from the garden, cut the back legs and the antenas and feed him that, I also have fed a few roaches, but he doesn't seem to like them just as much... the big brother has been on a staple mealworm diet, with an ocasional (less than once a week) grasshopper meal.

They are getting close to 2 months now..... the small baby is still very small!! I weight them yesterday, the baby that has been eating grasshoppers and roaches is 4,5 grames!, the baby that has been eating mealworms is 12 grames!

I understand that according to studies mealworms are not a good diet, but how is it possible that a mealworm eating baby is so big and healthy looking and a grasshopper-roach eating baby is not growing??? I mean, let's leave studies aside for a minute and let's talk about our personal experiences, this does it for me, I don't know what to think now about the so "terrible" mealworms... :? I'll take pictures right now so you can see the big size difference, and the ONLY difference between is food, they are clutchmates, same mom and dad, similar housing.... hatched same day...

Anyone care to give an opinion???

 

[Saskia]

Pictures taken today sept. 13... they are 52 days old (close to 2 months)

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

That's easy to answer. The mealworms are high in fat. Then on top of it, you're feeding the mealworms cat food, which is also bad and full of fat (as well as too high in protein). Fast growth does not equate to healthy growth. This is one of the reasons why breeders like mealworms. They can pack a lot of weight on them quickly and sell them for more money. Think about it...you can feed a child McDonalds food every day, and they'll likely put on weight twice as fast as a child eating a nutritious diet. But that certainly isn't healthy. Same concept.

 

[Saskia]

The cat food I gutload my mealworms with is 8% fat and 20% protein, which I have read is the % geckos need... is the only brand of cat food that has this % (it's crap for cats but appropiate for geckos because of this)... but my main question remains... why is the "healthy eating" baby not growing??? the big one is not getting obese, it's just growing! the small one has gained 1,5 grames in nearly 2 months ??? do you consider that normal?? I mean, 4,5 grames for a 2 month old is considered normal? I must add he eats every day.

 

[MattL]

I'm having a similar experience.

Both of my hatchlings have been individually housed since hatching and have only been fed mealworms. Both are eating them too. In fact the smaller gecko typically only eats 1-2 less than his brother. Yet he's still considerably smaller. My pictures would be very similar to Saskia's. I'm curious as to why this is happening. Especially since they ARE both eating from the meal worm dish and pooping regularly as well.

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

Just like children, some animals just grow faster than others. It could be due to anything from genetics, to stress, to temps, etc. Do you have any siblings? Did you grow at exactly the same rate?

 

[MattL]

Just like children, some animals just grow faster than others. It could be due to anything from genetics, to stress, to temps, etc. Do you have any siblings? Did you grow at exactly the same rate?

I do not.

I thought it was just different growth rates but was just curious since someone else seems to have the same experience.

 

[TheOneBlueGecko]

I have to think that it is just normal fluctuation in growth rates, there is also the fact that the one that is smaller seems to have had some issues from the start.

The only time I moved a gecko onto meal worms only, by choice (I am not counting the one that I was just trying everything to get it to eat, I did so because she was having more trouble catching crickets. (I did not know at the time about amputating the legs). She was 12ish at the time and had just crickets before that. She seemed to do just as well with only meal worms, but who's to say she would not have lived longer and better if I stuck with crickets.

The only way to really see if it makes a difference, other than reading the studies that talk about the differences between the nutritional value of different feeders, would be to take a bunch of babies and start them out with either just crickets or just meal worms and watch them for their whole life. See how quickly they grow, but also more importantly how long they live.

I do feed my current leopard gecko a combination of the two, meal worms to sit in the cage and crickets to add each night. And, beyond that, I will continue to feed my gecko crickets because it is fun to see him hunting them.

 

[MauricesExoticPets]

Its pretty simple really, calories, mealworms have more, grass hoppers have less.

You likely experience very fast growth and expect this to be the norm, it is not.

I feel that growing the leos on a mix of worms and other insects is better over the long term, the growth rate is slower than that of mealworm fed geckos, but I suspect that long term lifespan and overall health is better.

Your cat food does very little to the overall protein content of the worms, the worms can only eat so much, thus the gut contents are a slight portion of the total weight of the insect. What does matter is the life long consumption of a diet that is high in fat (8% is high in fat for mealworms). Your mealworms grow faster than they would on a low fat diet and much of their energy to grow this fast is found in the fat they consume. Growth happens when there is an excess of calories, fat has more calories than protein but is void of many of the nutrients needed to do much more than get bigger.

Mealworms and superworms have their place in reptile nutrition, likely 1/3 to 1/2 at most by weight for best health. This mainly reduces total protein content of the meals to 20-23% which is more in line with veterinary suggestions. Crickets, roaches, and some other insects are excessively high in protein as much as mealworms, superworms and wax worms are excessively high in fat.

In reality young geckos can tollerate a higher level of calories per g of body weight than adult geckos, altering their diet over a lifetime would prove difficult, so more often than not most simply feed less to keep weight under control.

Older geckos, say breeders, need differing diets based on their sex, you can not expect a male gecko to need the same level of calcium as the female who is producing eggs. Yet how many people do you see making this adjustment? Few people do, and we are I suppose blessed with a fairly wide safety zone for geckos such as leos.

Your smaller gecko might not grow as fast, because it prefers a different diet, that is not a real problem at the moment. Your faster growing gecko is simply getting big on a high calorie diet, in my opinion that is not a problem either as you state that you also feed other items to round out the diet.

I breed and feed off both supers and mealworms, but not as the primary feed source. If all I cared about was making a few dollars, mealworms would be all I fed because they are not at all expensive to produce.

I do hope this helps,
Maurice Pudlo

 

[MauricesExoticPets]

feeding trials have been done on leos with both crickets and mealworms, mealworm fed geckos grow faster, the paper did mention that the study was limited to growth rate on the two insects and not long term health.

 

[Debbie7054]

My latest two hatchlings have both been fed on mini locusts and one is nearly twice the size of the other one. I think Sparkle just isn't as strong or healthy as Zora. I'm giving her extra TLC and just hoping that she'll catch up. She's bright enough and walking around - just small and thin compared to Zora. With all my hatchlings it always seems that one thrives more than the other but this has been my most extreme case.

 

[Mardy]

The study is flawed simply because they are 2 different leopard geckos, and leopard geckos grow at different rates, sizes, and length. So comparing two geckos are like comparing two human beings, even if they come from same parents, brothers & sisters don't always grow at the same rate.

Aside from that, mealworms are higher in fat content. That's a well known fact. Higher fat content means faster weight gain. Faster weight gain means breeders can post on their site "LOOK! 40g AT ONLY 2 MONTH OLD!" Mealworms are also easier to keep in bulk, easier to take care of and easier to mass breed. It's the ideal feeder for breeders.

Anyways, I'm not here to argue for or against mealworms, just wanting to state the facts. I myself use mealworms for juveniles. But I believe in a variety so I actually switch up feeders and introduce new feeders when they are young so they don't grow up being picky eaters. So I always have mealworms, superworms, and dubia roaches in stock. You can't compare 2 geckos and call it scientific because you don't know if they were going to grow up at the same rate in the first place. Now if you do a much wider study, like how us humans would by taking samples from 1,000 geckos, then I'd say you may have something going there

I'll add that I have a massive super giant tremper female that's at 100g and 9 month old. She's a "picky eater" that eats nothing but dubia roaches (lol), and she's healthy and heavy as heck. Putting her up against a mealworm eater would probably throw the study out of whack

 

[MauricesExoticPets]

You and are obviously looking at two different studies then.

A multitude of geckos were studied, not two, and every imaginable factor was tested. The paper was punished and peer reviewed.

I'm certainly not speaking about some breeder published junk.

Facts are, mealworms have more calories for a given volume than crickets. Leopard geckos eat to fill a volume that is their stomach, mealworms produce an excess of calories over and above that needed for metabolic function, excess calories are converted to fat for use later. Assuming minimum vitamin and mineral needs are met along with enough amino acids, growth will happen.

Factors that inhibit growth are many, genetic bottlenecks being a big factor in today's overly refined morph selection.

Personally I strive for 9 month maturity based on weight.

Maurice Pudlo

 

[Mardy]

^ Oops sorry, I was responding to Saskia's original post. I should've made that clear. I haven't read the other ones yet

 

[MauricesExoticPets]

Calories in - calories used = calories remaining to convert into body mass.
vitamins in - vitamins used = vitamins that must be filtered out or put into storage.
minerals in - minerals used = minerals that must be filtered out or put into storage.
Amino acids in,,,ok you get the picture.

Everything has a perfect ratio, with some margin for error when it comes to micro and macro nutrients, look at how refined poultry, swine, and beef breeding is to get a clear picture of what I'm saying here.

Other factors can include temperature for geckos and availability of water, food palatability, and presentation can alter consumption rates to the point of altering total caloric intake.

A gecko that fails to thrive may well have other issues beyond dietary, especially when typical breeding efforts focus on visual morphs rather than weight gain and ability to convert food to mass more efficiently.

I don't think this is argued anyway.

Maurice Pudlo

 

[TheOneBlueGecko]

feeding trials have been done on leos with both crickets and mealworms, mealworm fed geckos grow faster, the paper did mention that the study was limited to growth rate on the two insects and not long term health.

Thanks for sharing, it would be interesting if there was a longer study looking at long term health of all sorts of different conditions for leos. Now if only it were practical.

 

[Saskia]

I'm worried about my smaller baby because he doesn't seem to be growing, and it feels like too big a coincidence that this is happening to the only baby I have been feeding exclusively on grasshoppers/locusts, I am not a comercial breeder, but I have hatched a few dozen healthy babies, and this is the first time this happened, I weigh my babies every month and the growth rate is pretty similar, but this one has been left behind big time!

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

I've raised hundreds of geckos without mealworms that have turned out just fine. If your one baby is doing that poorly, there's probably a reason. But I'm doubtful that it's because it's not getting mealworms.

 

[Debbie7054]

My last gecko hatchling Sparkle wasn't thriving so I've been giving her Hydro-life in addition to her mni locusts. She's finally started to put weight on now she was 4 grams when she hatched and went down to 3. She's 5 grams this week and looking a lot healthier. This is my 2nd gecko that hasn't thrived and by far the worst but I'm hoping that she'll be ok now. Good luck with yours Saskia. I hope your little baby starts growing better soon.

 

[Douceboyz]

You also said you collect your locusts and grasshoppers from your backyard. So maybe something other than nutrition is a problem. Parasites and other deleterious forms of bacteria could be causing a decrease in nutrient absorption. There are plenty of outlying factors here.