Leopard geckos should have a balanced diet consisting of insects and supplemented with calcium and vitamin D3, along with providing them with the appropriate environment and regular veterinary care when necessary. Achieving optimal health is also essential for these pets.
Feeder insects are an affordable and practical way to meet your leo’s nutritional needs. Gut loading these insects before feeding them to your leo ensures that they contain essential vitamins and minerals like calcium.
Feeder Insects
Maintaining a leopard gecko in captivity necessitates providing them with an array of foods to eat. Their diet should consist of feeder insects as well as other plant matter and small animals they can scavenge.
Leopard geckos in the wild consume a variety of insect species, such as crickets and waxworms. These feeder insects have been bred in captivity to provide pet reptiles with a varied diet; some of them are even available for purchase!
When purchasing feeder insects for your gecko, be sure to look for gut-loaded insects that contain calcium and vitamin D3 supplements. These are especially important as many commercially sold insects tend to be low in calcium and high in phosphorus.
Add these essential nutrients to your leopard gecko’s diet with calcium powder that contains D3 or high-quality commercially made food such as T-rex Calcium Plus food for crickets or Mazuri Hi-Ca Cricket diet. Calcium supplements may help prevent metabolic bone disease, a painful and deforming condition in these geckos.
Mealworms are an important source of nutrition for leopard geckos and they’re easy to feed. Unfortunately, mealworms contain chitin which can be difficult for leopard geckos to digest. Therefore, mealworms should be fed alongside crickets or cockroaches so your gecko gets the right balance of minerals and vitamins from its diet.
Mealworms
Mealworms can provide essential protein and fat for leopard geckos when kept in captivity. Unfortunately, their high chitin content makes them difficult for leopard geckos to digest; thus they should be fed alongside other insects such as crickets or cockroaches.
Infant leopard geckos should be fed 5-7 small crickets or mealworms every day until they reach approximately four inches long (around six months). As they mature, larger prey should be offered less frequently.
Adult leopard geckos can be fed 6-7 large crickets or mealworms 2 to 3 times a week. Waxworms are another suitable option, though be sure to give them in moderation or risk becoming addicted.
Leopard geckos feed on a variety of insects in the wild, such as beetles, spiders, crickets and scorpions. They also hunt smaller mammals such as baby mice or snakes.
Opportunistic eaters, they will try to consume anything that fits in their mouth. On rare occasions, they have been known to cannibalize hatchlings.
Leopard geckos in the wild usually feed on live insects, though they will occasionally consume raw meat such as pinkie mice. Meat is not recommended for these lizards due to its lack of calcium and fat content which could lead to digestion issues and other health complications.
Crickets
Crickets are the most commonly fed leopard gecko food. Not only are they readily available and easy to feed, but they’re also noisy which could pose choking hazards for some geckos. If you want your lizard kept quieter, mealworms or Dubia roaches would be preferable instead.
When selecting your lizard’s staple feeder insects, you should take into account their calcium and fat content. Generally speaking, a calcium to phosphorus ratio of 2:1 is ideal.
If your lizard is a juvenile, it should receive an oral calcium/vitamin supplement at each feeding. This precaution helps protect against metabolic bone disease that can develop in young geckos when their calcium levels are low and their phosphorus levels are high.
At most pet stores, calcium/vitamin supplements can be purchased and added to crickets or worms before offering them to your lizard. Alternatively, gut loading the crickets with this same supplement 24 hours prior to feeding them to your lizard can also be done.
Feeding your leopard gecko a variety of feeder insects is an excellent way to ensure they get all of the nutrition they require. Crickets, mealworms, superworms and waxworms can all be offered daily or as needed depending on your lizard’s appetite and budget.
