Crested geckos eat meal replacement powders that have been designed specifically for them. These food items include insect and fruit compounds to provide the optimal ratios of nutrients, making these easy and convenient to prepare options available from many reputable brands.
Arcadia StickyFootGold (SFG), one of the most acclaimed foods available today, contains 65% insects and 15% fruits.
Contents
Insects
Crested geckos eat insects as part of their natural diet and should be included in most complete crested gecko diets. When offering feeder insects to your crested gecko, always dust them in calcium powder with vitamin D3 before feeding to ensure they remain healthy and parasite-free. Wild caught bugs are best avoided since they could contain diseases or be covered in pesticides; opt instead for high quality feeder insects that are easy to keep like black soldier fly larvae (BSFL).
On the market today are several different CGD brands and varieties which combine insect matter with fruit compounds. Brands like Arcadia Sticky Foot Gold or Lugarti provide diets more closely aligned to those found in their native habitat, while Pangea or Repashy may offer more fruit varieties. You may also wish to introduce live insects such as crickets, mealworms, waxworms, butterworms, tomato hornworms or beetles as enrichment and protein sources into their diet for extra variety and enrichment purposes.
Fruit
Fruit is an integral component of crested gecko diet. It provides essential nutrition and vitamins, but care must be taken in selecting which type. Most cresties find hard fruit too difficult to bite into so blending or mashing it up may be required before feeding to them. Furthermore, adding mineral supplements such as calcium powder may be needed to prevent metabolic bone disease.
Many commercial gecko diets contain fruits in order to provide crested geckos with a well-rounded and nutritionally complete meal. While these may be suitable for captive crested gecko keeping, fresh fruits and live insects such as dubia roach nymphs should also be offered regularly as additional sources of nutrition.
Some cgd gecko food mixes contain dried bugs for extra protein content, but there are plenty of insect-free choices as well. Powders may be mixed with water directly or available as single serving cups that make feeding convenient.
Vegetables
Crested geckos in the wild consume a wide variety of fruit and vegetables, so if you want to mimic this in captivity it should be relatively straightforward. When feeding crestie feeder insects periodically throughout his captive stay, try including fresh, non-citrus fruits (like mango, bananas and papaya) along with gut loaded feeder insects as enrichment for him and stimulate his natural hunting response. This can add much enrichment for both your pet as well as enhance hunting behavior!
If you prefer not to provide feeder insects or simply don’t have the time and patience necessary for cutting up fresh fruits and veggies for your crested gecko, there are various commercially available crested gecko foods that provide him with a nutritionally balanced meal closer to what they would encounter in nature. Simply mix these powders with water until a paste-like consistency has formed that your pet will devour!
Some owners report that their crestie enjoys eating baby food or commercial reptile food; however, these should generally be avoided except in extreme emergencies due to being filled with sugar and preservatives which are harmful to cgds and ingredients like spinach that should not be given.
Water
Crested geckos are one of the easiest reptiles to care for, yet ensuring they receive a balanced or complete diet is crucial to their wellbeing. Calcium deficiency causes Floppy Tail Syndrome and Metabolic Bone Disease in gecko’s, so providing them with appropriate cgd gecko food will help prevent such issues.
Pangea, Repashy and Zoo Med offer several brands of CGD gecko food specially formulated to cater for this species of reptiles. Each has various flavors and ingredients designed to draw in reptiles while still providing essential minerals, vitamins, and other essential nutrients that they require for health.
These foods for CGD geckos can be easily prepared using water until they have the consistency of yoghurt/smoothie, then placed into their terrarium along with some gutloaded/dusted live insects for variety. In most cases, this should provide enough food to fill their bellies; otherwise more can be created and stored in an inexpensive glass bottle cap or tea light holder holder which serves as food bowls (they make great inexpensive bowls!). Refrigerated containers keep this mix fresh for days!
