Leopard geckos are strictly insectivorous creatures and cannot digest plants or fruits. Therefore, feeding your leo a variety of feeder insects such as crickets and dubia cockroaches is vital in order to ensure they receive all of the necessary nutrition.
Before feeding them to your gecko, it is advisable to gut load its feeder insects with beneficial bacteria and essential vitamins and nutrients. This will ensure they provide all necessary nutrition.
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Crickets
Leopard geckos often consume insects such as crickets, mealworms, dubia roaches and hornworms as food sources. These insects are easy to purchase or breed and provide protein rich meals without sticking to glass walls like earthworms and nightcrawlers do; making feeding time simpler.
“Gut loading” feeder insects before offering them to your pet can help ensure their long-term health and provides more nutrition than they would get in nature alone. This ensures they have optimal conditions to thrive in captivity.
If you cannot offer gut loaded feeders, at least try offering vitamin powder dustings once every week – this will help ensure that your leopard gecko remains happy and healthy! Avoid feeding freeze-dried insects which lose many of their vital micronutrients during drying processes.
Mealworms
However, while other feeder insects such as hornworms, waxworms, superworms and butterworms may tempt you to give your leo occasional treats like these insects, their high fat content means they should not be given regularly. Phoenix Worms (otherwise known as Black Soldier Fly Larvae) are more suitable options as they contain minimal fat with an ideal calcium to phosphorus ratio; you can purchase these live or freeze-dried, and be dusted with calcium and multivitamin supplements before feeding to ensure optimal performance!
These staple feeder insects should be fed to your leopard gecko at every meal and supplemented with an occasional treat insect. A diet too heavy in fat may put undue strain on their joints and organs and may result in serious health conditions such as fatty liver disease and xanthomatosis. If your gecko appears underweight or stops eating regularly, speak to a vet immediately as there could be another reason behind their lack of appetite.
Treat Insects
Crickets make an excellent staple food source for leopard geckos. Easy to maintain and breed, inexpensive, and offering an ideal ratio of protein-to-fat content, they stimulate their natural hunting instinct while being readily available and readily digested by geckos. However, to maximize health in leopard geckos it is also important to add variety with other feeder insects and treats like waxworms and butterworms as treats occasionally – too much fat from waxworms could lead to obesity issues in reptiles; hence only feeding occasional treats will suffice!
Hatchings and juveniles should be provided with as many crickets or Dubia roaches as they can consume within 10 minutes, to provide variety in their diet and promote fast growth. Adults may consume 6-10 larger crickets at each feeding, dusted with powdered calcium supplements containing Vitamin D3. Commercial gut-loaded diets may also provide your lizard with essential vitamins and minerals.
Commercial Diets
Leopard geckos love crickets because they are inexpensive, readily available and simple to digest. Crickets provide high amounts of protein while remaining relatively fat-free compared to mealworms – all qualities ideal for leopard geckos! You can purchase crickets at many pet stores.
Dubia roaches make an excellent feeder insect option for leopard geckos, boasting healthy proteins while remaining low in fat content and no foul odor or smell, unlike crickets which often jump or smell foul when fed to them. Plus, these dubia roaches can usually be purchased at most pet shops!
Avoid feeding any meat to your gecko, as it could contain harmful bacteria. Pinkie mice may be given as supplements if a leopard gecko becomes sick or underweight but should not form part of its main diet.
Keep an eye out for overfeeding your gecko, as these animals are susceptible to obesity. Feed them on a schedule and maintain ideal conditions in their habitat to combat this problem, coating feeder insects in calcium powder prior to each feeding to maintain an appropriate balance between calcium and phosphorus and help prevent Metabolic Bone Disease which can be difficult and expensive to treat. Calcium supplements come both liquid and powder forms which can easily be added directly into water supplies or drizzled onto feeders prior to each meal, or dusting before every feeding session.