Leopard geckos are insect eaters, so it is recommended to feed mealworms to them in a sufficiently-sized feeding dish to prevent escapees. When offering mealworms to your gecko for consumption, make sure they have been gut loaded to reduce potential escapees.
Feeder insects should be covered in supplement powder so as to make them healthier for your leo.
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Feeding
Feeding insects to your leopard gecko can be an affordable and straightforward way to provide him with essential nutrition. Mealworms are among the most widely available feeder insects, both at pet shops and online, offering high levels of protein with extended shelf lives through refrigeration; plus they’re easy to breed – not forgetting that you can dust them with calcium and vitamins before feeding!
Crickets are an excellent food choice for reptiles, with an easily available source, high protein content and minimal fat. Unfortunately, their noisy nature and frequent chirps may prove distracting to owners.
Giant mealworms are simply regular mealworms treated with hormones to delay their transformation into pupae. While these giant mealworms can still be refrigerated like regular ones, geckos should avoid eating them due to being infertile. Instead, load all feeder insects — including store-bought mealworms — with healthy, nutrient-rich food sources to ensure both their own and leopard gecko health are maximized.
Storage
Mealworm storage offers you a simple and cost-effective way to ensure leopard geckos receive a reliable food source, helping ensure they receive all the vitamins and nutrients they require for healthy living.
Mealworms should be stored in a warm environment that is free of moisture. Keep in mind that too cold of temperatures could result in them not thriving and becoming dormant or even becoming darkling beetles, which would render your investment useless.
Prior to feeding them to your leopard gecko, dust insects with nutrient powder. This ensures they ingest the supplement and pass it along. Use this same method on roaches, superworms, wax worms and CalciWorms. On occasion it can also help balance out their phosphorus intake and prevent metabolic bone disease.
Gut-Loading
Leopard geckos feed on an array of insects in the wild, so it is vitally important that any feeder insects that you give your leopard gecko are gut loaded before being given to it. Gut loading involves giving these feeder insects, like mealworms, crickets, dubia roaches or superworms) food rich with essential vitamins and nutrients several days prior to giving it to your gecko for optimal nutritional efficiency before providing it to them as food sources for your gecko.
Feeder insects provide your leopard gecko with protein-rich meals, but may lack essential vitamins and minerals. By supplementing their meals with leafy greens, fruits, vegetables and vitamin/mineral supplements you can ensure they receive all the nutrition they require from their insect meals.
Nutritionally-fortifying your leopard gecko’s insects with Vitamin D is absolutely crucial, whether through UVB light exposure for up to 48 hours prior to feeding them or via providing them with a diet rich in vitamin-D-containing foods.
Dusting
If you want your geckos to take full advantage of the nutrients found in their mealworms, dusting should take place every time they feed – this is particularly essential for gravid females as they need all of the extra protein, vitamins, and calcium available to them for egg production.
As well as this, it is also a good idea to supplement their mealworm diets with fresh greens such as turnip greens, collard greens, parsley or squash to improve nutrition in their diets.
Finally, it is advisable to provide your geckos with access to calcium powder (W/OUT D3) and multivitamin supplements like Zoomed’s ReptiVite or Repashy Calcium Plus on an ongoing basis for easy dusting of insects as needed. Use of both powders should occur once every feeding period; calcium should be offered on alternate days to maximize vitamin absorption from mealworms more readily.
