Leopard geckos are captivating pets, celebrated for their distinctive personalities, accessibility, and relatively straightforward care requirements. These insectivorous reptiles offer unique learning opportunities, particularly during feeding time, making them engaging for students and fascinating for reptile enthusiasts of all ages. This comprehensive guide provides essential information on how to provide a healthy and balanced diet for your leopard gecko, ensuring its well-being and longevity.
Understanding Leopard Gecko Nutritional Needs
Leopard geckos are insectivores, meaning their diet consists exclusively of live insects. In the wild, leopard geckos eat insects, lizards, and scorpions. To thrive in captivity, they require a varied diet of gut-loaded and supplemented insects. Variety is key to providing a balanced diet and preventing nutrient deficiencies.
Essential Food Items for Leopard Geckos
A varied diet is crucial for the health of your leopard gecko. Here's a breakdown of suitable feeder insects:
Crickets: Crickets are one of the most common food items for leopard geckos. They are readily available and provide a good source of protein. Crickets should be gut-loaded (fed nutritious food) before being offered to the gecko.
Mealworms: Mealworms are another staple food source. However, they should be fed in moderation due to their higher fat content.
Read also: Feeding Giant Leopard Moth Caterpillars
Dubia Roaches: Dubia roaches are a nutritious alternative to crickets and mealworms, offering a good source of protein and other essential nutrients. Dubia.com is a great resource for other types of feeders.
Superworms: Superworms are larger than mealworms and are high in protein and fat. They should be gut-loaded and dusted with calcium powder before feeding.
Waxworms: Waxworms are high in fat and can be used as a treat rather than a regular part of the diet. Waxworms can be offered occasionally for variety or to entice a gecko that is being picky about food.
Silkworms and Hornworms: Both silkworms and hornworms are excellent sources of protein, low in fat, and rich in moisture, making them very hydrating for geckos. Always ensure your animals are being fed hornworms that were raised on a captive diet.
Supplementation: Calcium, Vitamin D3, and Multivitamins
Supplementation is vital to prevent deficiencies and ensure your leopard gecko receives all the necessary nutrients.
Read also: The Hoxsey Diet
Calcium: All insect feeders should be dusted with calcium powder to balance the calcium-phosphorus ratio. Vitamin D3 helps leopard geckos absorb calcium properly. For leopard geckos with UVB, use Arcadia CalciumPro Mg, Repashy Calcium Plus LoD (no multivitamin needed), Miner-All Indoor, or Zoo Med Repti Calcium without D3. For leopard geckos without UVB, use Repashy Calcium Plus (no multivitamin needed) or Zoo Med Repti Calcium with D3. Some keepers like to keep a dish of calcium powder (no D3) in their gecko’s enclosure for the gecko to lick at will. As long as you are dusting your feeders appropriately, however, this should not be necessary (egg-laying females are an exception).
Vitamin D3: Vitamin D3 should be dusted on insects once or twice a week, depending on the amount of UVB exposure the gecko gets. 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.
Multivitamins: Leopard geckos also need an occasional multivitamin. Multivitamin powder can be used every once in a while, to provide extra nutrients. Dust insects with a multivitamin powder once a week for young geckos and once every other week for adult geckos. If you are using Repashy CalciumPlus, no additional multivitamin is necessary. Best multivitamins for leopard geckos: Repashy SuperVite, Zoo Med Reptivite without D3, and Arcadia Revitalise. Since leopard geckos are insectivores and unlikely to be able to convert carotene to vitamin A, they need a supplement that contains vitamin A (retinol) rather than beta carotene. Human multivitamins (Centrum) are better than reptile multivitamins. Grind them in a coffee grinder and sprinkle on crickets every other week.
Gut Loading: Enhancing Insect Nutrition
Gut loading your Leopard Geckos’ insects ensures that they are receiving the optimal nutrition from their meals. Gut-loading feeder insects for at least 24 hours before offering them to your gecko is essential. 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.
The easiest way to do this is to keep them optimally fed with one of the following formulas: Arcadia InsectFuel, Dubia.com Dubia Diet, Lugarti Premium Dubia Diet, Mazuri Better Bug Gut Loading Diet, and Repashy Bug Burger. For hydration, use gel water crystals. Some people like to use vegetable scraps to “gutload” their feeders, but personally I dislike this practice since the nutrition is incomplete and not specifically formulated for the insects’ dietary needs.
Read also: Walnut Keto Guide
Feeding Frequency and Quantity
It’s easy to remember how much to feed your gecko: Offer 2 appropriately-sized bugs per 1 inch of your leopard gecko’s length, or however much they can eat in 15 minutes. Juveniles (up to 12 months old) have faster metabolisms and need to eat more often. Juveniles should be fed daily, and young adults fed every other day/every 3 days. Adults whose tail is fatter than their neck can be fed every 5 days.
Water Requirements
While leopard geckos primarily get their hydration from the food they eat, it is still essential to provide fresh water at all times. Leopard Geckos should always have access to clean, fresh drinking water, and cannot survive for very long when dehydrated. Place a shallow water dish in the gecko’s enclosure and change the water regularly to ensure it remains clean.
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. Some wild caught insects are toxic, such as hornworms. The hornworm’s diet in the wild causes them to be toxic to your pet.
- 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. If these items are offered regularly or exclusively, it can cause your Leopard Gecko to not receive the optimal nutrition that they require. However, canned insects can be a helpful way to increase the variety in your pet’s diet by introducing bugs that you’re unwilling to deal with live (ex: crickets) or are hard to find otherwise (ex: silkworms). However, avoid dried insects, as these tend to have a dehydrating effect on reptiles.
- Toxic Insects: Some wild caught insects are toxic, such as hornworms. The hornworm’s diet in the wild causes them to be toxic to your pet.
- Insects from your backyard: Bugs caught in your backyard can make your gecko sick.
Treat Options
Treat Options for Leopard Geckos: Superworms (small), Wax worms, and Butter worms. These worms are very high in fat. So while they’re tasty, it’s best not to feed these more than once a week. Pinky mice should not be offered either, unless you are trying to fatten up a gecko who recently dropped its tail. As adults, leopard geckos take pinky mice, especially females. Start with one to two-day-old live pinkies until they are comfortable eating them, no more than one per week.
Addressing Feeding Issues
- Loss of Appetite: Note: Sometimes leopard geckos stop eating for weeks or even months at a time. This is normal. Whether due to breeding season or brumation, you don’t need to be concerned. As long as its weight stays roughly the same, your gecko will be fine. 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. 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.
- Weight Loss: 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. 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.
Additional Feeding Tips
- Avoid Leaving Insects in the Enclosure: Do not leave feeder insects in your gecko’s enclosure all day for your gecko to eat at their leisure - crickets and other feeders nibble on geckos in their sleep, sometimes causing serious injuries.
- Hand Feeding: You can hand feed these to your gecko with soft-tipped feeding tweezers. This is also a great way to bond with your pet!
Health Issues Related to Diet
Chronic malnutrition, fatty liver disease and low vitamin A and calcium deficiency are caused by feeding un-supplemented crickets and mealworms. Low vitamin A results in decreased appetite, difficulty catching prey, retained hemi-penal plugs, poor shedding, mouth rot and eye problems. Prey insects should be fed a calcium rich diet (usually greater than 6 to 8% Calcium) for several days; i.e., gut-loaded and dusted with calcium just prior to feeding Leopard Geckos.