Crested geckos make great pets and are easy to take care of, making them an excellent option for beginners due to their adaptability and ease of care requirements.
Though crested geckos can thrive with powdered meal replacements, many keepers opt for feeding live insects like crickets and dubia roaches instead. Before feeding any feeder insect to their pet, be sure to load its gut with salad, then dust it with calcium plus D3 supplement dust for best results.
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Crested Gecko Diet (CGD)
Crested geckos are frugivorous and insectivorous animals, so providing your pet with an excellent commercial crested gecko diet (CGD) is the key to providing them with all of the nutrition they require. There are several such CGD products on the market including complete foods from Pangea and Repashy as well as meal replacement powders from Zoo Med.
These powder based diets require mixing with water into a smoothie-like consistency for best results, but contain all of the vitamins and minerals essential for crested gecko health and should form the core of their diet.
Many owners choose to add fruit and feeder insects (worms, dubia roaches and crickets) as a supplement to their CGD, to maximize your crestie’s enjoyment from each bite! Just remember to gutload and dust all insects prior to offering them so he gets maximum benefit out of each bite!
Insects
Crestid geckos thrive in their native environment by eating fruit and insects; when kept captive, most owners supplement their crestie’s diet with insects or worms as protein sources. When selecting feeder insects it is important to gut load and dust liberally prior to feeding as commercially raised insects are often deficient in calcium and thiamin (vitamin B1) with an unbalanced Ca:P ratio; therefore using high quality feeder insects with premade gut loads or gut loading them yourself may be necessary for optimal results.
Crickets are the go-to feeder insect for crested geckos, as they’re both inexpensive and readily available at pet stores, providing adequate nutrition. Unfortunately, crickets contain high amounts of fat which makes digestion challenging; grasshoppers offer similar nutrition but boast an improved Ca:P ratio, making digestion simpler for cresteds.
Superworms can also be an option, though their hard outer shell may make it difficult for smaller crested geckos to consume them and they have a low calcium/phosphorus ratio and have been known to bite.
Fruits
Crested geckos adore fruits and can include them as part of their diet, with some even preferring fruit over insects for nutrition. Fruits provide essential vitamins and minerals while providing a tasty break from overly nutrit-dense feeder insects – they also can help prevent metabolic bone disease; make sure to provide fruit at least a couple times each week as part of an alternative feeding solution!
Your crested gecko should avoid feeding fruits that contain low calcium-to-phosphorous ratios or high oxalic acid levels, as these will deplete its calcium stores and possibly lead to health problems in their own right. While moderate or high ratios may still be fine, excessive exposure to oxalic acid could deplete calcium from their bodies causing serious issues for their wellbeing.
If your gecko is reluctant to consume fruits, offering them in puree form can help. A food processor or mashing up fresh fruits for mixing can work wonders here – just remember not to give too many large pieces at one time as they could lead to choking hazards!
Vegetables
Cresties geckos hunt insects, worms, fruit and other animals in the wild to stay active and engaged; simulating this behavior indoors helps cresties stay engaged with life.
Insects provide enrichment while adding protein to your crestie’s diet, so they should not be overlooked as enrichment sources. For an easy alternative that won’t require cage maintenance or gut loading/dusting with vitamins (and doesn’t clog their digestive tract!), freeze-dried bugs and worms make an excellent option as they won’t have hard exoskeletons which could cause impaction, plus will last much longer!
Banded crickets, readily available at most pet stores, make an excellent starter feeder insect with their high calcium-to-phosphorous ratio and easy digestibility. Dubia roaches, hornworms and silkworms should be dusted with calcium powder prior to feeding them to your crested gecko; all should also be dusted with some calcium powder prior to giving as a meal for optimal results. In combination with Pangea or another well-balanced CGD diet plan these feeders are an excellent way of keeping him healthy while stimulating his natural hunting instinct.
