Advice needed (mealworms and crickets)

[Josh P.]

Hello everyone, I would appreciate your advice and hearing different opinions in order to learn from your expertise and diversity of methods in taking care of your leopards.

Considering an adult and using a feeding schedule once every two days, how many mealworms should the adult be fed in each feeding?

Another question I have is, are crickets interchangeable with mealworms in quantity? What I mean is, if the appropriate feeding would be 5 mealworms, would that be the same as 5 crickets and vice versa?

Thanks in advance!

 

[GeckoCrossing]

My adults all eat around 9-10 large mealworms every day. My breeding females eat about 10-13 on average with 5-10 left in their feeding bowls at all times. I've found that they eat less mealworms than they do crickets. But that could be that I err on the side of caution and make sure that every one is smaller than between their eyes.

But there's no set number for how much to feed and how often. It's all down to the individual gecko. Some may eat a lot more and grow slowly, whereas some may eat only a little but grow fast. It's fun to find out who's the piggy of the group lol.

 

[Josh P.]

Thanks for the reply!

But my question is, how to find the right amount for a pair of geckos living together? Do I keep giving them until they stop eating to determine the amount?

 

[GeckoCrossing]

That's what I do; within a 15 minute time slot.

 

[acpart]

You can keep the mealworms in all the time, so you could just put a bunch in and see what happens. If they keep getting cleaned out, then maybe increase. I find in general that my geckos eat about 4 crickets at each feeding but that can vary. In general, put some in, and adjust up or down depending on how the geckos respond.

Aliza

 

[Dimidiata]

If your keeping a pair would it be safe to bet that having two seperate feeding dishes may help prevent bullying or fighting over one?

 

[Whiteboymagic21]

As long as it is always full for them to feed it shouldn't be a problem. But i have two feed bowls, two water bowls, and two calcium bowls for mine just to make sure they all get what they need. It cant hurt to have extra.

 

[ReptileWorld]

I am not one to watch for numbers or really count what each gecko eats that would be impossible for the size of my herp collection. I just dump in amount I think is good and let them chow down. normally since I over feed there is some left over which is gone the next day. the 3rd day I will add maybe less then the first time to see if they finish it all up. Then again I dont have a set feeding schedule I just feed as I go. I keep careful observation of each geckos condition and weigh them every 3 months to see who is gaining and who is losing weight. If I feel a single gecko is consistently losing weight and its noticeable to the eye then i will separate them to their own enclosure and beef them back up and then back into the group they go. :main_thumbsup:

 

[Crunchewy]

Is it ok to feed large mealworms to a leopard gecko? I'm not sure how old ours is. The large mealworms seem so dang long I was worried about feeding them to him.

 

[Dimidiata]

They do fine. You know they crunch them up, its not that big of a problem, they arnt as big as supers either.