Geckos, with their diverse species found across the globe, make fascinating and relatively low-maintenance pets. From the insect-loving leopard gecko to the fruit-enjoying crested gecko, understanding their dietary needs is crucial for ensuring their health and well-being. This comprehensive guide will walk you through everything you need to know about feeding your gecko the right foods, offering variety, and avoiding common pitfalls.
Understanding Gecko Dietary Needs
Gecko species are found on every continent except Antarctica-from India to Africa to the Amazon and New Caledonia. Because of this diversity, wild geckos have varied diets that provide them with vitamins, minerals, nutrients. As they age, geckos can even be carnivorous, feasting on smaller geckos, snakes, small mice, and young birds. Juvenile geckos generally eat more frequently-sometimes two to three times a day, while adult geckos only need to eat every day or every other day.
Insectivorous Geckos: A Bug-Eating Bonanza
Most varieties of geckos (including leopards, African fat-tailed, tokays, house, flying, cave, and frog-eyed) are insectivores and prefer a diet of crickets, waxworms, earthworms, mealworms, fruit flies, moths, or grasshoppers offered every two to four days. Truly insectivorous geckos, such as leopard geckos, should not eat fruits or vegetables, ever.
Frugivorous Geckos: A Sweet Treat
Some types of geckos enjoy eating fruit in addition to insects. The most common frugivorous varieties include crested, gargoyle, chahoua, day, and mourning geckos. Pet parents may occasionally offer fruit to species that naturally eat fruit, such as crested, day, and tokay geckos.
The Importance of Variety
The key to providing a healthy, balanced diet for your pet is VARIETY. Always follow a gecko’s normal feeding patterns they would have in the wild. Some geckos are diurnal (awake during the day), while others are nocturnal (awake at night).
Read also: Complete Leachie Gecko Guide
Feeder Insects: A Detailed Guide
Crickets
Crickets are one of the most common (and affordable) feeder insects. They’re high in protein, easy to digest, and geckos love the chase.
- Nutritional Value: Crickets are one of the most common food items for leopard geckos.
- Feeding Tips: Be sure to buy crickets from a reputable source and gut-load them (feed them nutrient-rich food like leafy greens or commercial cricket diets) 24 hours before offering them to your gecko. Put a large rock in the bowl so any crickets that accidentally get in the water can escape.
Mealworms
Mealworms are another popular option, though they’re a bit higher in fat and can be harder to digest due to their thicker exoskeleton. They’re best offered as a supplement to your gecko’s main diet, not as the only food source.
- Nutritional Value: Mealworms are another staple food source.
- Feeding Tips: Like crickets, they should be gut-loaded and occasionally dusted with calcium or multivitamin powder. If the thought of keeping live prey on hand isn't appealing, try dehydrated mealworms for easy feeding.
Dubia Roaches
Dubia roaches are highly nutritious, lower in fat than mealworms, and easy to digest. Many gecko owners prefer them because they don’t chirp, smell, or jump like crickets.
- Nutritional Value: Dubia roaches are a nutritious alternative to crickets and mealworms.
- Feeding Tips: Make sure to choose the right size roach, nothing larger than the space between your gecko’s eyes.
Waxworms
- Nutritional Value: Waxworms are high in fat and can be used as a treat rather than a regular part of the diet.
- Feeding Tips: Waxworms can be offered occasionally for variety or to entice a gecko that is being picky about food.
Superworms
- Nutritional Value: Superworms are larger than mealworms and are high in protein and fat.
- Feeding Tips: Superworms should be gut-loaded and dusted with calcium powder before feeding.
Fruit Flies
If you’re caring for a hatchling or very young gecko, fruit flies are a safe and manageable food option. They’re tiny, easy to eat, and offer enough protein to help your gecko grow strong and healthy.
Silkworms and Hornworms
- Nutritional Value: Both silkworms and hornworms are excellent sources of protein, low in fat, and rich in moisture, making them very hydrating for geckos.
- Feeding Tips: Always ensure your animals are being fed hornworms that were raised on a captive diet. The hornworm’s diet in the wild causes them to be toxic to your pet.
Pinkie Mice
Some adult geckos will also enjoy pinkie or infant mice. Some geckos may also eat “pinkie” mice, which are commercially available mouse pups, but this is rarely required for nutritional value.
Read also: What to Feed Your Leopard Gecko
Gut Loading: Boosting Nutritional Value
Commercial feeder insects are typically devoid of nutritional value. Therefore, these insects should be gut-loaded, which means the insects are fed specialized supplements 24-48 hours before being fed to the gecko. To gut load, offer your Leopard Gecko’s insects a variety of healthy foods such as leafy greens and a commercial gutload diet like Repashy SuperLoad, 24-48 hours before offering the insects to your gecko. In this time, the bugs will ingest the food and their bodies will become full of additional nutrients that will then pass on to your gecko once they are consumed.
You can do this easily by offering Gut Load Cricket Drink with Calcium to boost both the hydration and calcium content of the insects. You can also increase the nutritional value of your gecko's live prey by offering it nutrient-dense fresh produce including leafy greens, broccoli, cauliflower, parsley, and carrots.
Supplementation: Calcium and Vitamins
Geckos also require additional calcium supplementation, such as Repashy Calcium Plus, to prevent common diseases like metabolic bone disease. All insect feeders should be lightly “dusted” with calcium powder to balance the calcium-phosphorus ratio.
- How to Feed: Dust insects with calcium powder before feeding.
- Importance: Vitamin D3 helps leopard geckos absorb calcium properly.
- How to Feed: Vitamin D3 should be dusted on insects once or twice a week, depending on the amount of UVB exposure the gecko gets.
Multivitamin powder can be used every once in a while, to provide extra nutrients. If you are providing your Leopard Gecko UVB, then they only need D3 sparingly in their diet since their body will be utilizing their UV light to synthesize D3.
If you are using UVB light in your gargoyle gecko’s enclosure, use a calcium powder without vitamin D. If you are not using UVB light in your gargoyle gecko’s enclosure, use a calcium powder with vitamin D.ReptiFiles strongly recommends using UVB for all reptiles!
Read also: Learn About Golden Gecko Diets
Fruit for Frugivorous Geckos: A Delicious Addition
Some types of geckos enjoy eating fruit in addition to insects. The most common frugivorous varieties include crested, gargoyle, chahoua, day, and mourning geckos. Offer fruit as a once a-week treat. A few favorites include papaya, pears, blueberries, mango, guava, cherries, pineapple, plums, grapes, apples, watermelon, and bananas. The best way to offer fruit is in a pureed form. To keep feeding simple and nutritionally balanced, consider offering your fruit-loving pet Gecko Gold Powdered Diet. This prepared food keeps in the refrigerator for up to seven days. You can offer it to juvenile geckos daily and adults up to three times each week.
Prepared Diets for Gargoyle Geckos
Generally speaking, I don’t advise using prepared diets to feed reptiles. The most common products available on the market tend to be full of filler ingredients and fail to provide a balanced diet. BUT - In the case of certain geckos, I make an exception. Thanks to the exhaustive efforts of some really smart people, there are nutritionally-complete prepared diets on the market that make feeding your gargoyle gecko easy.
Who makes the cut?
- Arcadia StickyFootGold
- Pangea
- Repashy
- Black Panther Zoological (BPZ)
- Leapin’ Leachie
- Zoo Med
- Lugarti (read the ReptiFiles review here)
All of these brands offer top-quality nutrition and a range of palatable flavors to suit your gecko’s individual preference (or simply to provide a variety).
How to Prepare Powdered Diets
Mix the powdered diet with water to a ketchup or smoothie consistency (usually 2-3 parts water per 1 part powder) and offer in biodegradable gecko cups. Most gargoyle geckos prefer to eat up off of the ground, so you’ll need a wall-mounted feeding ledge as well. Offer fresh food every 24 hours for juveniles, and every other day for adults.
What’s so bad about other brands of crested gecko diet?
Developing a quality prepared diet requires generational testing, precise nutrient ratios, high quality ingredients, palatability, and popularity among experts. So far the abovementioned brands seem to have the best ingredients and ratios. Leave any other brands (National Geographic, Exo Terra, Fluker’s, etc.) on the shelf - they may do your gecko more harm than good.
Is baby food a good substitute for crested gecko diet?
No. Baby food typically contains lots of preservatives and artificial colors/flavors. Additionally, since it’s made for humans, the nutrient ratios are off, and can actually make your gecko sick.
Can gargoyle geckos eat fresh fruit?
Fresh fruit and fresh fruit smoothies are suitable as an occasional treat. Appropriate fruits include mango, apricots, papaya, and berries.
Feeding Schedule and Habits
Age-Based Feeding
- Juveniles (up to 12 months old): They have faster metabolisms and need to eat more often.
- Adults: Adult Leos only need to eat four to five times a week, which makes them a relatively low-maintenance lizard.
General Feeding Tips
Geckos are natural hunters who like to stalk their prey. Continuously monitor insects during feedings; never leave them in the cage alone with the gecko. Insects can bite geckos, especially while the gecko sleeps, and cause health issues. It is best only to feed what a gecko can eat within 15 minutes, which is usually four to six food items. Insects should be approximately half the size of the gecko’s head.
At feeding time, transfer the appropriate size and number of insects into a separate container to dust with the calcium supplement. Most people find the use of insect tongs useful. Place the dusted insects in a shallow container or place them in the terrarium with the gecko. If not put in a dish, pet parents should ensure the gecko cannot ingest the substrate in addition to the insect.
Hydration: Water is Essential
Leopard Geckos should always have access to clean, fresh drinking water, and cannot survive for very long when dehydrated. While leopard geckos primarily get their hydration from the food they eat, it is still essential to provide fresh water at all times. Just like us, geckos drink water. They also love to soak in water to assist with the routine shedding of their skin (like a snake!). Be sure your pet gecko has a shallow water bowl inside his terrarium where he can drink and bathe. Change the water daily to keep it fresh and bacteria-free. It's also a good idea to set up a moist area in your pet's habitat. Watermisted sphagnum peat moss tucked inside a hiding rock provides a cozy place for your pet to relax.
For hydration, give your Leo a shallow dish of fresh drinking water daily.
Can gargoyle geckos drink water from a bowl?
Contrary to popular belief, YES - gargoyle geckos can see, recognize, and drink water from a bowl. Most feeding ledges have space for two condiment cups, so provide CGD in one of them, and fresh water (not distilled or reverse-osmosis) in the other.
Foods to Avoid
Wild-Caught Insects
Never feed insects you have found in the wild to your Leopard Gecko. Feeding wild caught prey runs the risk of introducing disease to your pet. You also run the risk of your animal ingesting pesticide or fertilizers, which can be fatal. Wild insects are tempting to catch and offer to a gecko; however, the risk of insecticide exposure is considerable and potentially dangerous and may cause severe neurological or gastrointestinal issues and even death. Therefore, most veterinarians recommend against feeding wild-caught insects.
Dead, Dried, or Processed Foods
Leopard Geckos should also not consume dead, dried, or processed foods regularly. Leopard Geckos are designed to eat fresh, live prey. Insects that are dead, dried, cooked, frozen, or processed lose some of their nutritional value. Dried insects are also tempting to feed, as there is no live insect upkeep. However, dried foods lack critical nutrients for geckos.
Fruits and Vegetables for Insectivorous Geckos
Unlike bearded dragons or iguanas, geckos aren’t built to digest leafy greens, fruit, or vegetables. Their digestive systems are designed for insects, not plant matter so skip the salad bar and stick to live bugs for a healthy, happy gecko. Truly insectivorous geckos, such as leopard geckos, should not eat fruits or vegetables, ever.
Addressing Feeding Issues
Loss of Appetite
Although Leopard Geckos may slow down on how much they are eating during the colder winter months, Leopard Geckos should always be offered food even if they do not show enthusiasm for a meal. If your Leopard Gecko is refusing food and losing weight, it is important that you get them into a licensed exotic veterinarian promptly to address the issue.
Weight Monitoring
Weighing your Leopard Gecko every week as a baby, and every two weeks to every month as an adult allows you to keep track of your animal’s weight. Leopard Geckos store excess fat in their tails and will use this as a reserve when they are unable to access food. As a general rule, otherwise healthy adult Leopard Geckos can go for up to 2 weeks or more without eating, and some have been known to go several months in extreme cases, though this is not ideal.
Calcium Deficiency
Chahoua, moreso many other gecko species, are highly dependent on a steady supplementation of calcium. Adequate calcium is most important in breeding females, but is also very important as young geckos are growing into adulthood. Calcium deficiency can kill females and result in underbites, kinked tails and death in younger and juvenile geckos as well. If you see your gecko beginning to develop a wavy tail, that is the first sign of calcium deficiency. Mix some extra calcium into his or her fruit diet, and offer some extra calcium-dusted insects.