Canned crickets

[JerryL]

My daughter Liz recently got a young high yellow leopard gecko that she named Toothless. The pet store tells us that he (arbitrary guess at gender here) is a few months old. I’d say he’s about 4-5 inches long head to tail.

Since settling in, he has had a good appetite. We keep him at about 8 mealworms a day and it’s clear that he can eat more if we provided more worms. She’ll feed him 6 worms in early evening and leave a few canned worms in his dish when she goes to bed. We use Flukers. He’ll usually eat those worms within an hour or so.

We’ve been reading that it’s good to vary his diet by adding crickets. But the crickets are too fast for him to catch and it’s even hard for us to cut off the legs as suggested in the guide. I was wondering if canned crickets would provide the similar nutrients as the live ones. These will be easier to handle and I’m guessing if he likes canned worms he’ll likely eat the canned crickets as well... is it a good idea to add canned crickets to his diet?

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

My daughter Liz recently got a young high yellow leopard gecko that she named Toothless. The pet store tells us that he (arbitrary guess at gender here) is a few months old. I’d say he’s about 4-5 inches long head to tail.

Since settling in, he has had a good appetite. We keep him at about 8 mealworms a day and it’s clear that he can eat more if we provided more worms. She’ll feed him 6 worms in early evening and leave a few canned worms in his dish when she goes to bed. We use Flukers. He’ll usually eat those worms within an hour or so.

We’ve been reading that it’s good to vary his diet by adding crickets. But the crickets are too fast for him to catch and it’s even hard for us to cut off the legs as suggested in the guide. I was wondering if canned crickets would provide the similar nutrients as the live ones. These will be easier to handle and I’m guessing if he likes canned worms he’ll likely eat the canned crickets as well... is it a good idea to add canned crickets to his diet?

I don't recommend canned insects or worms. We are what we eat. Canned prey has NO opportunity for eating prior to feeding them to Toothless. ;-) Insects and worms require a good dry diet 24/7. I don't recommend Flukers' for insect or worm diets.

Here are 2 different clear glass feeding dishes: Walmart's glass tealight holder -- smaller + 8 ounce Anchor's glass dishes also at Walmart. I use a stone ramp up to the 8 ounce dish for my adult leo. The smaller dish may help Toothless catch crickets. Measuring spoons may help you catch small crickets!

(click to enlarge)​

Have you decided upon a powdered supplement for Toothless? Mealworms COULD be fed at all Toothless's feedings. I use Zoo Med's supplements for all my geckos. Zoo Med's Reptivite multivitamins contains some vitamin A acetate (retinol). That's important for eye and skin health. Flukers' multivitamins only contain vitamin A beta carotene.

Flukers' Calcium with D3 contains excessive D3.

For link 23 click: For link 24 click: Calcium powders with D3 ONLY -- March 2021 (update)​

Weekly Schedule 124 for Leopard Geckos 0-12 months old
(withOUT UVB)​

Metabolic bone disease (MBD) symptoms include uneven (lopsided) gait, walking on one or both "elbows", bowed limbs, belly dragging, and an underbite. Difficulty chewing should be closely monitored.

The Reptile Supply Company (916-226-4089) based in Lodi, California stocks Zoo Med's ReptiVite multivitamins withOUT D3.

During this time your leopard gecko will be transitioning from daily feeding to feeding 3x per week. This all depends upon how fast your leo grows!

Feed lightly dusted prey 3x per week.

• Monday > > crickets or dubia lightly dusted with Zoo Med's Repti Calcium with D3
• Tuesday > > mealworms, superworms, or black soldier fly larvae (Phoenix worms) > > no dusting
• Wednesday > > crickets or dubia lightly dusted with pure precipitated calcium carbonate withOUT D3 (Zoo Med's Repti Calcium or NOW's human-grade pure calcium carbonate)
• Thursday > > mealworms, superworms, or black soldier fly larvae (Phoenix worms) > > no dusting
• Friday > > crickets or dubia lightly dusted with Zoo Med's ReptiVite multivitamins withOUT D3
• Saturday > > mealworms, superworms, or black soldier fly larvae (Phoenix worms) > > no dusting
• Sunday > > no food or free choice > > no dusting

For link 124 click: Weekly Feeding & Supplement Schedule 124 for leopard geckos 0-12 months old

Here's a healthy dry diet/bedding for mealworms/superworms and for bugs too! After you get mealworms or superworms, replace the bedding they come in with already ground Professional Reptiles' Pro Gutload (1-775-359-1085). Keep those worms in 6 quart plastic Sterilite tubs with bedding & ventilation at room temperature, NOT in the refrigerator.

Click: Professional Reptiles' Pro Gutload dry diet: 1, 5, & 10 pound bags​

Wheat germ, wheat bran, and oats contain hugely excessive phosphorus amounts! Use something else for a mealworm or a superworm bedding!

\/ \/ \/
In addition to a balanced dry diet to cover the basics, offer your geckos' feeders some veggies and fruits from these lists.

Gutload Ingredients for Bugs & Worms . . . . . . thanks to Olimpia -- August 2013

"A commercial gut loading food like Bug Burger or Superload (both by Repashy), Cricket Crack, Dinofuel, etc. is going to make your life easier AND provide a nutritious diet to your crickets at the same time. Avoid Fluker's gutloads, as they are super feeble in their formulas.

"If you opt for making your own gutload at home, here's a list of great ingredients to use:
BEST: mustard greens, turnip greens, dandelion flowers & leaves, collard greens, escarole lettuce, papaya, watercress, and alfalfa.
GOOD: sweet potato, carrots, (oranges), mango, butternut squash, kale, apples, beet greens, blackberries, bok choy, and green beans.
DRY FOOD: bee pollen, organic non-salted sunflower seeds, spirulina, dried seaweed, flax seed, and organic non-salted almonds.
AVOID AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE: potatoes, cabbage, iceberg lettuce, romaine lettuce, spinach, broccoli, tomatoes, corn, grains, beans, oats, bread, cereal, meat, eggs, dog food, cat food, fish food, canned or dead insects, vertebrates."

 

[JerryL]

Hi Elizabeth,

Thank you for the detailed advice for Toothless. We currently put small pieces of squash in the mealworm bedding for the mealworms to munch on, then Liz chooses a few lucky worms each evening who are attached to the squash to put in Toothless' feeding dish. We've been dusting the worms in Zoo Med's Reptivite reptile vitamins with D3 before putting them in the feeding dish. We've also purchased Zoo Med's Repticalclium without D3 but not quite sure how to introduce it to him. Can we dust his food with both powders at the same time?

You mentioned that mealworms can be fed at all of his feedings; does that mean that we don't need to worry about crickets? Even within a dish - I'll try some of those teacandle holders - he just stands there and watches the cricket hop around, next to, and under him without doing anything. The only cricket he has ever caught was one that we had put in the fridge for a few minutes who seemed dazed as we placed him next to Toothless...

Another question Liz has is that Toothless seems to have a voracious appetite. We've gotten up as high as 10 meal worms in a single feeding and he eats the last one as quickly as the first one. Now he has learned that worms appear in his dish and he'll just stand there for hours waiting for the worms to come.



Liz is also beginning to entice him to walk into her palm to grab a worm. It feels like he's constantly hungry no matter how much we feed him... At his age, how many worms can we feed him per feeding?

Thanks,

Jerry

 

[JerryL]

Impaction

This is a question from my daughter Liz about her baby leopard gecko:

Hello! Lately I’ve been hand-feeding Toothless, and I have a question in impaction. He’s around 2-4 months old, I think.

When I chose out a mealworm for Toothless to eat from the mealworm cup I keep mealworms in, something must have got on my thumb, either a mealworm’s shed, or a single grain of corn meal. It was very light so I didn’t feel it/see it either in the dim light. When I put my hand down to hand-feed him, Toothless ate the light corn meal/mealworm shed instead of the actual meal worm.

I am quite concerned and I’m wondering if he is going to get impaction? If he does, what can I do about it?

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

This is a question from my daughter Liz about her baby leopard gecko:

Hello! Lately I’ve been hand-feeding Toothless, and I have a question in impaction. He’s around 2-4 months old, I think.

When I chose out a mealworm for Toothless to eat from the mealworm cup I keep mealworms in, something must have got on my thumb, either a mealworm’s shed, or a single grain of corn meal. It was very light so I didn’t feel it/see it either in the dim light. When I put my hand down to hand-feed him, Toothless ate the light corn meal/mealworm shed instead of the actual meal worm.

I am quite concerned and I’m wondering if he is going to get impaction? If he does, what can I do about it?

Hi Liz,

As long as Toothless has 88-92*F temps underneath his warm dry hide, I don't think he'll have trouble digesting either a mealworm's shed or a grain of corn meal.

IF he does, it's quite safe to place 1-2 drops of vegetable oil on his nose to help him poop. IF you get to that point, warmish soaks (86*F -- a leo's preferred body temperature) along with throat-to-vent massaging will help Toothless pass such an impaction.

Are you keeping the mealworms at room temperature? That's best.

I'll reply to your other thread sometime later today.

 

[Hilde]

JerryL, I've merged your two threads. The questions you have could be related, so it's easier to keep track of everything in one thread.

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Thank you for the detailed advice for Toothless. We currently put small pieces of squash in the mealworm bedding for the mealworms to munch on, then Liz chooses a few lucky worms each evening who are attached to the squash to put in Toothless' feeding dish. We've been dusting the worms in Zoo Med's Reptivite reptile vitamins with D3 before putting them in the feeding dish. We've also purchased Zoo Med's Repticalclium without D3 but not quite sure how to introduce it to him. Can we dust his food with both powders at the same time?

You're welcome. I know how important it is to do this "just right".

Let's keep each supplement separate.

I suggest feeding Toothless all he'll eat in about 20 minutes. Let's see if that fills him up. Waiting at his food bowl for hours may be a sign that he's still hungry.

A dry diet like Professional Reptiles' Pro Gutload contains more nutrients than cornmeal alone. Pro Gutload is inexpensive. Keep it in an airtight container and away from light.

Both plain calcium carbonate and Calcium + D3 are more forgiving than multivitamins with or withOUT D3. I recommend using ZM's Reptivite with D3 multivitamins at only 1 feeding per week. Then use ZM's plain (no D3) calcium at 2 additional feedings per week. Vitamin D3 is fat soluble. That means a single D3 dose sticks around in a leo's body ALL WEEK LONG & metabolizes all the calcium carbonate that comes along.

Weekly Schedule 124 for Leopard Geckos 0-12 months old
(withOUT UVB)
Especially adapted for leopard gecko Toothless​

Metabolic bone disease (MBD) symptoms include uneven (lopsided) gait, walking on one or both "elbows", bowed limbs, belly dragging, and an underbite. Difficulty chewing should be closely monitored.

The Reptile Supply Company (916-226-4089) based in Lodi, California stocks Zoo Med's ReptiVite multivitamins withOUT D3.

Lightly dust the prey 3x per week even when your leopard gecko eats daily. When your leo graduates to eating ~3x per week, still lightly dust the prey ONLY 3x per week.

During this time (0-12 months old) your leopard gecko will be transitioning from daily feeding to feeding ~3x per week. This all depends upon how fast your leo grows!

• Monday > > crickets or dubia lightly dusted with Zoo Med's ReptiVite multivitamins with D3
• Tuesday > > mealworms, superworms, or black soldier fly larvae (Phoenix worms) > > no dusting
• Wednesday > > crickets or dubia lightly dusted with pure precipitated calcium carbonate withOUT D3 (Zoo Med's Repti Calcium or NOW's human-grade pure calcium carbonate)
• Thursday > > mealworms, superworms, or black soldier fly larvae (Phoenix worms) > > no dusting
• Friday > > crickets or dubia lightly dusted with pure precipitated calcium carbonate withOUT D3 (Zoo Med's Repti Calcium or NOW's human-grade pure calcium carbonate)
• Saturday > > mealworms, superworms, or black soldier fly larvae (Phoenix worms) > > no dusting
• Sunday > > no food or free choice > > no dusting

For link 124 click: Weekly Feeding & Supplement Schedule 124 for leopard geckos 0-12 months old

I'll reply in several hours to anything I didn't cover.

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Hi Elizabeth,

. . . . . .

You mentioned that mealworms can be fed at all of his feedings; does that mean that we don't need to worry about crickets? Even within a dish - I'll try some of those teacandle holders - he just stands there and watches the cricket hop around, next to, and under him without doing anything. The only cricket he has ever caught was one that we had put in the fridge for a few minutes who seemed dazed as we placed him next to Toothless...

Stunning Toothless' crickets in the refrigerator right before feeding is an excellent idea!

Toothless can be fed ONLY mealworms as long as the mealworms are getting a good diet beforehand. For some reason corn is also on the AVOID list of the veggie/fruit list I sent a couple days ago.​

Another question Liz has is that Toothless seems to have a voracious appetite. We've gotten up as high as 10 meal worms in a single feeding and he eats the last one as quickly as the first one. Now he has learned that worms appear in his dish and he'll just stand there for hours waiting for the worms to come.

View attachment 49743

It's difficult to judge by numbers, Jerry. How many mealworms would Toothless eat in 20 minutes?​

Liz is also beginning to entice him to walk into her palm to grab a worm. It feels like he's constantly hungry no matter how much we feed him... At his age, how many worms can we feed him per feeding?

That sounds like FUN!

Please see above.​

I hope you saw my message yesterday about Reptivite with D3 multivitamin and plain calcium dosage frequency.

 

[JerryL]

JerryL, I've merged your two threads. The questions you have could be related, so it's easier to keep track of everything in one thread.

Thanks! Being new I wasn't sure if the convention was to keep different topics on different threads or combine related ones together. Appreciate the help here.

 

[JerryL]

It's difficult to judge by numbers, Jerry. How many mealworms would Toothless eat in 20 minutes?.

Liz tried an experiment where she put 16 mealworms in his dish. He ate 15 of them in about 5 minutes. He looked at the 16th one but then walked away. Though the next day he pooped 5 undigested mealworms back out. She has been keeping him at 8 mealworms a day since then.

Thank you for designing a menu for Toothless. Currently we have a jar of Zoo Med Reptivite Multivitamin with D3 and a jar of Zoo Med Repti Calcium without D3. She alternates dusting with the two. The mealworms are being gut-loaded with vegetables from your list and also dandelion flowers. We buy the mealworms from Petco, though she also has a container with about 30 beetles hatched from the mealworms. We were hoping they'd breed to make new mealworms but so far it has been about 2 months and no luck.

We have a "mountain" on the cool side of his habitat and he likes to climb up there to look around when he's alone. We have a webcam in the room to watch him as he still doesn't like to be out much when people are around. When we are in the room, but not close to the habitat, sometimes he'll go up to some place high and just watch us. I didn't know much about geckos and lizards before Liz decided to get them as pets, but I've been pleasantly surprised at how intelligent the little guy appears to be.

The other day when Liz was feeding him mealworms dusted with calcium, we spilled some on his mountain, and he immediately ran over to lick up all the spilled white powder. I wonder if this means he needs more calcium than what we are giving him...

Thanks again for taking the time to share all this valuable advice, Elizabeth. It's much appreciated.

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Liz tried an experiment where she put 16 mealworms in his dish. He ate 15 of them in about 5 minutes. He looked at the 16th one but then walked away. Though the next day he pooped 5 undigested mealworms back out. She has been keeping him at 8 mealworms a day since then.

Thank you for designing a menu for Toothless. Currently we have a jar of Zoo Med Reptivite Multivitamin with D3 and a jar of Zoo Med Repti Calcium without D3. She alternates dusting with the two. The mealworms are being gut-loaded with vegetables from your list and also dandelion flowers. We buy the mealworms from Petco, though she also has a container with about 30 beetles hatched from the mealworms. We were hoping they'd breed to make new mealworms but so far it has been about 2 months and no luck.

We have a "mountain" on the cool side of his habitat and he likes to climb up there to look around when he's alone. We have a webcam in the room to watch him as he still doesn't like to be out much when people are around. When we are in the room, but not close to the habitat, sometimes he'll go up to some place high and just watch us. I didn't know much about geckos and lizards before Liz decided to get them as pets, but I've been pleasantly surprised at how intelligent the little guy appears to be.

The other day when Liz was feeding him mealworms dusted with calcium, we spilled some on his mountain, and he immediately ran over to lick up all the spilled white powder. I wonder if this means he needs more calcium than what we are giving him...

Thanks again for taking the time to share all this valuable advice, Elizabeth. It's much appreciated.

You're welcome, Jerry.

You mention that Toothless quickly went over to some spilled calcium powder and licked it up. Toothless' Adapted Schedule 124 recommends light dusting with Reptivite multivitamins ONLY @ 1 feeding per week and light dusting with plain calcium carbonate (Repti Calcium withOUT D3) @ 2 feedings per week. That's dusting on Ms-Ws-Fs. Is that what you've been doing? If so, it's alright to more heavily dust the prey on Ws & Fs. Powder sticks to crickets better than to mealworms.

An easy way to dust the prey is to use a tall 32 ounce deli cup. Add a bit of powder; add crickets or mealworms; then swirl them. If necessary, bounce the mealworms (or crickets) off the bottom of the deli cup to lessen supplementt powder. Tightly cap the 32 ounce deli cup until the next dusting day.

If you'd like to treat Toothless to some worms that are high in calcium, try hornworms. Petco carries hornworms in 4-packs for about $10. Be sure to buy the small hornworms. Hornworms mushroom in size just about overnight!

For link 33 click:
Hornworm Care Guidelines​

Somewhere on Geckos Unlimited I have a link for mealworm breeding.

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Just confirming:

How often is Toothless eating per week? Have you & Liz been dusting the mealworms 1x per week with Zoo Med's Reptivite multivitamins with D3 and 2x per week with Zoo Med's Repti VCalcium withOUT D3 (plain calcium carbonate)?

 

[JerryL]

Just confirming:

How often is Toothless eating per week? Have you & Liz been dusting the mealworms 1x per week with Zoo Med's Reptivite multivitamins with D3 and 2x per week with Zoo Med's Repti VCalcium withOUT D3 (plain calcium carbonate)?

Yes, we've been doing all this for Toothless and he's active and energtic and has a great appetite!

Though we do have a related question on nutrition...

At the same time we bought Toothless, a family friend also bought another leo gecko from the same litter - we're pretty sure he and Toothless are siblings. They have a little boy a few years younger than Liz who takes care of him - his name is Stripey.

Recently we've been babysitting Stripey while the family is on vacation. Even though Stripey and Toothless started at the same size three months ago, Toothless is now about twice the length of Stripey. We believe Stripey has been offered calcium but I'm not sure his mealworms get the same kind of dusting that Toothless gets.

We did some googling and wonder if Stripey has MBD as he seems to have some of the symptoms. A few months ago he was very lively and curious - much more than Toothless who was very shy - but now Stripey seems lethargic all day. We've also noticed that Stripey doesnt stand on his front legs the way Toothless does - he sort of crawls and pulls himself along.

I've uploaded a short video of Stripey we just made today. I wonder if anyone can tell us what the problem is and what we can do to help him. We have Stripey for two weeks and Liz and I are hoping to help him get better and pass on specific instructions to his owners...

Thank you for any help or pointers!

 

[JerryL]

Here is another video of Stripey.

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

We did some googling and wonder if Stripey has MBD as he seems to have some of the symptoms. A few months ago he was very lively and curious - much more than Toothless who was very shy - but now Stripey seems lethargic all day. We've also noticed that Stripey doesnt stand on his front legs the way Toothless does - he sort of crawls and pulls himself along.

I've uploaded a short video of Stripey we just made today. I wonder if anyone can tell us what the problem is and what we can do to help him. We have Stripey for two weeks and Liz and I are hoping to help him get better and pass on specific instructions to his owners...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9dI2JmM8Js

Yes, Stripey DOES have MBD! BOTH Stripey's rear legs are significantly abnormal. Both front arms have been affected too.

I wonder how Stripey has been supplemented up to now.

I recommend supplementing Stripey on the same schedule you use for Toothless. Will Stripey eat dusted crickets?

 

[JerryL]

Yes, Stripey DOES have MBD! BOTH Stripey's rear legs are significantly abnormal. Both front arms have been affected too.

I wonder how Stripey has been supplemented up to now.

I recommend supplementing Stripey on the same schedule you use for Toothless. Will Stripey eat dusted crickets?

Oh no! I thought this might have been the case...

I'll have to ask Liz when she's up tomorrow as this is way past her bedtime. From what I know Stripey seems to prefer non-dusted mealworms but he just has a low appetite in general. Toothless can easily eat ten worms a day and wants more. His owners tell us Stripey eats perhaps one or two mealworms every other day. The last few days, Liz has been able to coax him to take four on and off.

We thought he was probably calcium deficient so Liz has been putting calcium powder on his nose and let him lick it off. She also does the with drops of water. She tells me this works pretty consistently but I don't know if this is the right thing to do.

Will he get better if we start getting him to take more calcium and vitamins?

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Oh no! I thought this might have been the case...

I'll have to ask Liz when she's up tomorrow as this is way past her bedtime. From what I know Stripey seems to prefer non-dusted mealworms but he just has a low appetite in general. Toothless can easily eat ten worms a day and wants more. His owners tell us Stripey eats perhaps one or two mealworms every other day. The last few days, Liz has been able to coax him to take four on and off.

We thought he was probably calcium deficient so Liz has been putting calcium powder on his nose and let him lick it off. She also does the with drops of water. She tells me this works pretty consistently but I don't know if this is the right thing to do.

Will he get better if we start getting him to take more calcium and vitamins?

I think Stripey's MBD will gradually lessen. I don't think Stripey's MBD will disappear. The MBD I see is fairly advanced.

Has Liz been giving Stripey Zoo Med's Reptivite multivitamins with D3 @ 1 feeding per week along with plain Repti Calcium @ 2 feedings per week? If Stripey won't eat dusted mealworms, placing both powders on his nose like Liz is doing may be your only alternative.

Vitamin D3 is necessary @ 1 feeding per week in order to metabolize ALL the plain calcium he receives.

Be sure Stripey's mealworms have been gutloaded!