feeding a crested gecko

[mrsbntn]

hi
Today we bought a small crested gecko. She is beautiful and very friendly but i am unsure of how/what to feed her. She is on peat substrate and i hesistate to let loose crickets in there incase she cant get to them and they bite her.
I tried to put her in a container with crickets in it last night but she wouldnt eat anything.
I have bought fruit and turkey baby food which i havent tried with her yet. Would she be better on repticarpet? at least until she is a little bigger. What is the best way of feeding her?:main_thumbsup:

 

[dpal666]

The best thing you can do is get the repashy CGD (crested gecko diet)
Until you can, mix some calcium into the baby food and feed that at night, just make sure to get away from the baby food soon, it causes problems after a while

Don

 

[snakegirl]

CGD (crested gecko diet) Is by far the best to use, You can add crickets if you want, but CGD is great to use alone to.

 

[sammer021486]

Yep get her on Crested Gecko Diet (CGD), you will have nothing but trouble feeding her baby foods. I highly recommend the banana flavour if you go the 2 part diet. I have 4 cresties and they all eat the banana flavour, I have tried mango, rose, and strawberry and each time I had geckos that ate only one of the flavours, gave them banana and they all dig in.

 

[mrsbntn]

thanks. We bought the replashy crested gecko food today and made some up for her. Its difficult to tell at the moment whether she has eaten any although she has been on the ground around her dish. I think it is just the basic one but it smells wonderful. Has a strong banana aroma so fingers crossed that she will like it. I hesitate to feed her crickets because of the substrate. My white lines had a cricket left over that grew huge and it took alot to finally catch it i certainly dont want that to happen to my crested i would be afraid it would bite her

 

[sammer021486]

If she is just young then you probably will not notice her eating from the dish, unless you make the diet really thick and in a very small amount.

If it is the 1 part diet were you just add water, then I think that it is rose, banana and fig nectars that he uses in the mix.

 

[mrsbntn]

We changed the food today so that it was
fresh for her. It's hard to tell if she's eating
it doesn't appear so but with that type of
food it's difficult to tell. I know ********
had a bunch of crickets in her cage but I'm
not going to do that I done like crickets
being allowed to roam free especially with small
geckos. Hopefully we will see some signs of
her eating.

 

[Magic Merlin]

Not to sound mean but why did you not research the care of the animal before you bought it? (rhetorical question)
Since you said the gecko is small my suggestion is that you house the gecko in a very small container for alittle while with only a bunched up paper towel for it to sit on or hide in. A small crestie has a very little stomach so the best way to feed is to put your crested gecko diet in a bottle cap or milk jug cap and only a tiny amount so that you can tell when the gecko has eated since babies don't usually eat in front of you. Next, put into your small container 10 little mealworms and again, when you are not looking in the middle of the night, your gecko will snag 1 or 2 per day......when you inspect the container and you only find 7 little mealworms then you know your little gecko has eaten. The paper towel being the ONLY thing in the tank is very very important because if your gecko is eating then they will also be pooping which is then easily verified on the paper towels. Now, if your gecko is not touching the watery dab of crested gecko diet and not eating the mealworms then a trick you can do is to stick your finger into some "thick" crested gecko diet and smear alittle on the side of the geckos mouth and they will instintually lick it off themselves, just be careful not to get it on their nostils. After a month or 2 of the gecko eating then I would upgrade to a larger enclosure.

 

[mrsbntn]

we did research before we bought her. The problem is that everyone has different ideas about what you should do. The pet store handout says to feed insects and baby food which is what we got for her. The crested gecko diet was actually pretty hard to find in the local stores and we had to call around in the area to find it after i had even discovered it existed.
I will try putting her in a small container and see what happens.

 

[Northstar Herp]

we did research before we bought her. The problem is that everyone has different ideas about what you should do. The pet store handout says to feed insects and baby food which is what we got for her. The crested gecko diet was actually pretty hard to find in the local stores and we had to call around in the area to find it after i had even discovered it existed.
I will try putting her in a small container and see what happens.

I have had a crestie since October, and as far as I know it has never voluntary taken any sort of CGD. it just eats crickets, and likes roaches too. I posted here asking about it, and some folks said that they have had cresties like that, and that sometimes they grow into eating the CGD. I dust the crix in the CGD now in the hopes that something will click in their little brain... Take that untested second hand knowledge and do with it what you will...:main_thumbsup:

 

[sammer021486]

If you are worried about the substrate and her eating, just swap it out for paper towel. I kept my 3-4 week old cresties in the taller kritter keepers until they were 6 months old, then switched them over to larger tanks then. Their setup consisted of a cork bark hide and a silk plant, simple and easy to maintain.

As for her not eating the diet, they will not starve, try the smaller tank, if the gecko is really small it could not be finding the food if the tank is really large. Switch to paper towel and do not give her anything other than the diet. You can use Gatorade lids to provide a nice shallow bowl for the food.

I have used the trick with dusting the crickets in the diet. After fighting for a month with my 3 year old adult to switch her over to the diet, by trying 50/50 baby food and diet mixes, only the diet, and other tricks. I started to feed her crickets that were dusted with the diet and within the week I began finding signs that she was eating the diet from the bowl.

I lucked out with my newest male, he was a pet store buy and was feed only crickets, his entire life at the pet store, but I know that he came from a breeder who feed CGD, so getting him back on the diet was a breeze.

 

[Northstar Herp]

An encouraging update for ya...

Two nights ago, mine finally started eating CGD. Unfortunately, it takes a dump in the dish every night too... but it's an improvement from never eating it.

 

[Magic Merlin]

An encouraging update for ya...

Two nights ago, mine finally started eating CGD. Unfortunately, it takes a dump in the dish every night too... but it's an improvement from never eating it.

ROFLMAO :main_laugh::main_laugh::main_laugh::main_laugh:

 

[element1630]

i didn't read most of the other posts so it might be mentioned somewhere but you should join the forums at www.pangeareptile.com its all about cresties and other rhacs... lots of great people willing to help out there