The Optimal Crested Gecko Food
The Ideal Diet That's Healthy for Your Pets and Cheap for You
Sep 29, 2009
A large majority of Crested Gecko feeding information is flawed. Most of it will suggest human baby food supplemented with calcium. Some will tell you to buy powered foods that you add water to. There are even some pet stores that say to feed Crested Geckos an all insect diet. Each of these ways has it’s own flaws both in cost to you and in health risks for your geckos. Originally from the island of New Caledonia, Crested Geckos in the wild eat mainly fruit, often overly ripe fruit that has fallen from trees. They supplement their diet with a small number of insects.
What Not to Feed Crested Geckos
Baby food is packed with sugars. These sugars are fine for human babies, but can lead very quickly to overweight, unhealthy geckos. Baby food, once opened, has a short shelf life, so you are looking at spending about a dollar a week to feed. That number is per gecko. The more geckos you have, the more baby food you will be buying. It is also important to not feed your geckos citrus. A lot of baby food contains citrus, so you will have to read labels carefully. The baby food must also be meat free. The powered foods are alright, but expensive. They also lack variety. Geckos prefer different flavors and it is not unheard of for geckos on powered diets to stop eating. As for an all insect diet, the tropical Crested Geckos eat only a few insects in the wild and cannot survive on a diet as rich in insects.
What Crested Geckos Should Eat
The best thing to do for your geckos is to make the food yourself. Using plain fat-free yogurt as a base you can create a "fruit smoothie" that your geckos will love. You choose the fruit that goes into it, feel free to play around and see what your geckos like best. Popular recipes include a banana, an apple, and a handful of strawberries or a mango with strawberries. Any non-citrus fruits are acceptable. Some gecko chefs stop by a health food store and pick up Spirulina, an algae supplement, and bee pollen. Two to three of each of these pills can be crushed and added to the mixture as well. Grind it all up in a blender and pour it into ice cube trays. It takes less than an hour to chop it all up and get it into the freezer and cost-wise is just about equal to baby food, but is so much healthier for your pets and can last months. When it’s time to eat just unfreeze a cube and stir in some calcium and vitamin supplement.
The Best Diet for Crested Geckos
Crested Geckos should get their baby food once every other to every two days. Start with every other day and if they don’t finish it, offer it every two days. Crested Geckos are nocturnal, so feed at night before you go to bed. Leave it in for two days, some geckos prefer the food after it’s been left to sit, so just because they haven't finished yet, don't take it out. Spray some water into it to re-wet it and leave it. Every two weeks they should get some crickets dusted with calcium. This keeps them active and adds a bit more variety to their diet. An adult gecko can eat 3-4 crickets. Once a week stir some powered food into their meal as well, for an extra vitamin boost. And once a month as a treat or if a gecko seems thin or is ready to lay eggs, add some baby food to the mix.
A Crested Gecko can live as long as fifteen years and with a diet like this those years will be happy and healthy ones.
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