Gut loading mealworms is an effective way to provide your leopard gecko with a varied diet. All that’s necessary is some apple puree (or any other fruit or vegetable you have on hand) and some patience.
You can use this same strategy for gut loading other types of food as well, just be sure to do it 24 hours before feeding them to your leopard gecko. Doing so ensures they’re as nutrient dense as possible.
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Feeder Insects
Gut loading mealworms is an effective way to ensure your Leopard Gecko gets all of the essential vitamins and minerals it requires for healthy development and a long lifespan. These essential nutrients promote healthy development in addition to providing energy and essential trace elements.
Mealworms make an excellent addition to a gecko’s diet, providing them with protein and fat essential for growth and lethargy. Unfortunately, they lack key micro-nutrients like calcium and vitamin D3.
Gut loading your mealworms is essential to make sure the gecko gets all of its essential vitamins and minerals. This involves providing nutritious foods like carrots, potatoes, and fruit before offering them to the gecko.
Mealworms
Mealworms are a popular feeder insect for leopard geckos, as they’re inexpensive and easily available. Unfortunately, their nutritional value does not compare to crickets or dubia cockroaches, so you should only use them as an additional supplement to a more comprehensive diet of live insects.
Gut loading mealworms refers to providing them with nutritious food for at least 24 hours before giving them to your leopard gecko. Doing this ensures they’re full of essential nutrients your leopard gecko can absorb during feeding time.
Vegetables such as carrots, leafy greens, fruits and oats/bran are great additions for mealworms. To make them even more nutritious, add supplements like a high protein supplement, calcium powder or wheat germ for extra growth and development.
It is recommended that you gut load all of your geckos’ feed insects, including crickets, mealworms and dubia cockroaches, within 1 to 3 days after feeding them to your pets. This step is especially important as many feeder insects lack essential nutritional value for optimal pet health.
Crickets
Crickets are a widely available, nutritious feeder insect. Not only that, but these bugs also digest easily into your gecko’s stomach, allowing their nutrients to pass onto them when fed.
These bugs can be purchased at pet stores or the internet, with a long lifespan so you should have plenty of them to last you. Be mindful though – due to their high fat content, other staples such as dubia roaches or waxworms should be fed alongside them in order to prevent obesity in your gecko.
Before feeding crickets, it is recommended that they undergo gut loading for a day or two so their bodies can absorb essential vitamins. Doing this helps protect your leopard gecko from developing metabolic bone disease.
Dubia Roaches
Dubia roaches make excellent gut loading mealworms for leopard geckos, providing your reptile with essential nutrients it may not otherwise receive. Because dubia roaches possess specialized bacteria in their gut, they’re able to digest plant matter that other feeder insects cannot, releasing essential vitamins and minerals your pet needs.
Another advantage of feeding Dubia roaches is that they can store food in their bellies for up to three days! This provides them with time to digest it and absorb essential nutrients as they move along.
These pests don’t make noise like crickets do, so you won’t be disturbed in your home by them. Furthermore, due to their inability to jump or climb flat surfaces, they’re less likely to escape than crickets are.
Maintaining dubia roaches is relatively straightforward; just make sure to clean their enclosure every 1-2 weeks to reduce buildup of dry droppings and shed exo-skeletons. They can be housed in egg crate flats, but make sure they’re placed vertically to prevent them from climbing the walls of their enclosures.
