New here w/ questions

[Cherbear]

Hello I have to admit that I don't know a whole lot about geckos, but have decided to add one or two to my collection. I have 2 pixies, 3 pacman frogs, 3 tomato frogs, 1 russian tortoise, 4 southern painted turtles, lots of fish and 6 cats. At first I thought I may get a bearded dragon until I saw how many crickets they can eat when babies. Do they really eat that much? So, I have been leaning more toward leo's. I have been doing at lot of reserch and know what they eat but my question is what quantity do they eat from baby to adulthood. Maybe if I had an example of a typical days feeding. Any other advice would be welcome cause I want to learn as much as I can before going to the reptile show in Dec. Thanks

 

[Snowy & Petra de Gecko]

Feeding

It all depends. You can look at this site and you can get a general idea by reading the various posts.

A Baby will eat say 5 to 10 crickets a day.

A JV will eat say 5 crickets a day or will start eating every other day.

An adult will eat say 5 crickets every other day.

Now, I am not sure about the eating habits of the adults as mine are JVs.

I also keep mealies in a dish with them all of the time so that if they want to eat more then they can.

And sometimes they do.

 

[acpart]

Welcome to GF. Google some care sheets ("leopard gecko" care) to get an idea. Mine is here: http://geckcessories.wordpress.com.

For young babies, I would give each about 10-15 mealworms a night or 4-5 crickets. If they finish that and want more I'd increase by 5 mealworms or by 1-2 crickets. Once they hit 40 grams or so I find that they don't eat as often. I feed adults (over 50 grams; I'm still feeding my 40 gram juveniles every night just in case) every day during breeding season, about 20 mealworms for the mealworm eaters and about 5-6 crickets per adult otherwise. Many of my adults aren't hungry in the winter and went to the cool side of the cage. I have turned the heat down for 7 of my 11 adults and will not be feeding them till mid Jan.

I hope this helps.

ALiza

 

[Cherbear]

Thank you, this really helps me a lot. I'll be going to the reptile show in mid Dec. so I hope I can make up my mind by then. I'd say the only thing that I don't like about them is that they are nocturnal. I post pics if I end up getting one. Thanks again!

 

[2bacop]

well i never feed my leo mealworms because she wont eat them so all I can tell you about is crickets.

When she was a baby she ate around 10-13 pinhead crickets a day. Now she is six months old and she eats around 8-9 medium sized crickets, and lik I said she is only 6 months old so I dont know beyond that!