Feeding tub layouts for hunting crickets!

[Morfran]

I finally settled on a female name Leilani. I think it fits her personality perfectly.

I set up some paper towel roll half’s to act as tunnels and released crickets for her to hunt in an old 30g aquarium and she loved it. She was wiggling her tail like never seen before she was so excited to be hunting. I wish I could’ve gotten footage of that, my camera was acting funny.
I’ll attack a photo of the layout below, I want to know if others do this and what their feeding tubs may look like.

 

[acpart]

I just feed my geckos in their cage. What you're doing looks like a great enrichment for the gecko. I usually have the opposite problem with my older geckos who need me to take things out of their cages so they can find the crickets!

Aliza

 

[Morfran]

I usually feed her in her enclosure when feeding mealworms, I decided to do this bc as you said happens I don’t want the crickets to hide from her. A full open set up doesn’t make it quite a hunt for her so I went with a minimalistic look that serves it’s purpose and functionality with the paper towel roll halves. Crickets had no where to hide that she couldn’t find them, also I figured other than giving her something she just gets excited about and is enriching as you said I was thinking all the chasing and searching will act more or less as an “exercise” and would not be one to control weight but one that just makes her actually have to run and move more and it would overall be better for her body just like a good run on occasion can be for us humans.

 

[Herpin Man]

I don’t use feeding tubs for geckos. I have too many geckos for it to be practical, and there is rarely any advantage to doing so.

 

[Morfran]

As said above the point is to provide a space to make hunting her food easier in for she moves around a lot more and a lot faster in this set up. I’ve noticed since doing so she’s easier to handle and she simply seems more active in her tank as well like she just likes to move and explore. I only do it at times she’s active like morning or night but it seems like she takes notice to when it’s only if she’s active bc like said above she comes out and explores more in her tank rather than just sleep and move from hide to hide. She’s even out at hours at times you’d think she’d be sleeping. She knows when I’m going to get her out and will climb in the same spot every time telling me she’s ready and when she doesn’t I know she doesn’t wanna come out. The only time she glass surfs is when my dog is looking through the glass at her and she comes to him walking towards him until she glass surfs at him and follows his nose. When I first got her I was irresponsible and didn’t think to put away my dogs when handling her and my dog is a good boy and very kind and gentle when he really try’s. Every time I’ve had her out he’s been good and she’s even crawled on him over his snout and he stayed still like a good boy. He just watched her curiously and she watches him back I’ll get a photo of it.

Long story short I think doing this once a week increased her comfortably with coming out and being handled and in my particular case it benefited for me for my gecko now wants to come out often and is comfortable with me and dog even all though I want no one to worry for I’ll never trust my dog to never make an accident so I always take precautions when handling my gecko around my dogs. My gecko is in return also more active. Could be the diet variety, the gecko could just be getting a good amount of energy and is using it non related to my OG post, or who knows everyone experiences different things with different animals so we could also just chalk it up to that.

 

[acpart]

If it works, it's probably worth doing . . .

Aliza

 

[MUD]

Great idea. I have been taking a couple of hides out of the habitat to make it easier to hunt but mine is still young (4.5 months old).