Meal Worm Dish?

[Doubelminttwin]

So it seems a lot of people have a mealworm dish in instead of just feeding them individually. I personally kind of like feeding them, it allows me to know who is eating, whose not eating a lot or not eating at all. Of course it might be easier for them to have a dish ad they can eat whenever they want to opposed to whenever we feed them.

Which one do you all think is better?

 

[Khrysty]

I have too many to feed individually. And they all like to eat at different times. It's easier to set the dish in and replace the mealies (or whatever feeder I'm using at the time) every day. My geckos eat when they want, and my life isn't consumed by feeding.

And I'm a very small scale breeder. I can't imagine the bigger breeders would take the time to feed individually, either.

Of course, when I have one I notice isn't eating, or is sick, or whatever, that one gets my undivided attention lol

 

[MichaelJ]

We use a mealworm dish, but there are times when we feed them by hand - just to spend some quality time with them. We have one leo, Denzel, that isn't so great at striking his food. Maybe he's a little cross-eyed? We hand-feed him each time to make sure he eats. Too funny.

 

[Doubelminttwin]

That makes sense, it definetly seems easier and less time consuming, I know with the 8 we have it can get to be annoying at times so I couldn't imagine having more.

MichaelJ, I think they are fun to watch when they are stalking them We have one that usually misses a few times too, shes a little slow but shes persistant lol the ones that don't miss that often always have a hissy fit when they do and dont' try to go after it again, bruised gecko egos But of course they will eat a new one (fatties).

 

[RoninSTi]

I hand feed my gecko a couple times a week, basically whenever I have the time, and I really enjoy it. However I also like the convenience of being able to load up her dish when I'm busy (or if I'm doing a weekend trip) and I know she will go grab food whenever she desires. Once my collection grows, I'm sure I'll rely more on the feeding dish. I use a pitri dish btw.

 

[TickoLucky]

I have a mealworm dish in my leos cage. But I don't think he knows what it is for so he gets handfed but there are always mealworms in the dish just in case.

 

[Latlaw]

I do both depending on the time factor. I enjoy watching them eat--especially stalking the crickets. I have one boy, Gus, who has yet to eat from a dish. I will hand feed supers or he will stalk crickets. He's spoiled . . but we love him!

 

[HaaStyle]

I use these for mealies (even supers), water, and calcium...

the geckos do a good job of getting them and no escapees

https://superiorenterprise.com/stor...=53&redirected=1&Itemid=53&vmcchk=1&Itemid=53

 

[STUTFL]

I have only one gecko, so it depends on how busy I am when he decides he's hungry. Usually I just hand-feed whatever the Food of the Month is. :laugh:

Tonight I had to thin out the mealworm population a little, so I just dumped a bunch of them into his dish (which is an ashtray, so it's transparent). He just sort of saw the movement through the glass at first and snapped at it, hit the glass, slooowly raised his head until he could see in ... and then was like this :shocked: :banana: when he saw how many mealworms were in there. :laugh: He's munching 'em down right now.
So, a dish works for me under certain circumstances, but I don't have enough leos that it's a necessity.

 

[Cornman21]

I've had my leos for about 4 days and they dont seem too beeating from the dish too well. I guess with time theyll find it and get comfortable enough to eat from it

 

[sammer021486]

I've had my leos for about 4 days and they dont seem too beeating from the dish too well. I guess with time theyll find it and get comfortable enough to eat from it

A trick I do is to get the gecko to follow me with a mealworm in my tweezers and then I drop the worm into their dish, after a while they learn that is where their food is.

 

[T-ReXx]

All of my geckos get fed in dishes. This includes not only the leos, but my tokays, african fat tails, and cresteds as well. Most of them catch on pretty quick where the food is and will often be waiting by the dish a bit after the lights go out. I also have too many animals to hand feed them all, so dishes make life a lot easier. Even hatchlings are dish trained within a few days(though they still know I'm the source of the food, and will look up at me waiting for me to drop worms in the dish at feeding time). The only bugs I don't use dishes for are lateralis roaches with the leos, and that's mostly because they're good at getting out of the shallow dishes I use for worms. When I feed roaches(which is once a week) I just drop a few in the tubs, they tend to wander around aimlessly and the geckos enjoy hunting them down. In a larger setup(like with my crested gecko groups and tokay pairs) I use/would use a dish simply because theres more space and more places for roaches to hide, but in the tubs(my leos are kept singly in 15 quarts) its a small enough area that the geckos have little trouble finding their food.