Leopard geckos are popular pets, known for their manageable care requirements and engaging behaviors, especially during feeding. These insectivorous reptiles offer unique learning opportunities, teaching about nutrition, responsibility, and animal behavior. Ensuring your leopard gecko receives proper nutrition is crucial for its health and longevity. This article provides a detailed guide to feeding your leopard gecko, covering everything from suitable insects to essential supplements.
Understanding Leopard Gecko Dietary Needs
Leopard geckos are insectivores, meaning their diet consists solely of insects. They do not eat fruits, vegetables, or meat. Variety is key to providing a healthy, balanced diet.
The Importance of Variety
Offering a rotation of at least three different types of feeder insects provides enrichment and varied nutrition, preventing nutrient deficiencies.
Hydration
While leopard geckos primarily get their hydration from the food they eat, providing fresh water is essential. Place a shallow water dish in the gecko’s enclosure and change the water regularly to ensure it remains clean.
Feeder Insects: A Detailed Look
Here’s an overview of suitable feeder insects for leopard geckos, along with their nutritional value and feeding tips:
Read also: Feeding Giant Leopard Moth Caterpillars
Crickets
Crickets are a common and readily available food source for leopard geckos.
- Nutritional Value: Crickets provide a good source of protein and other essential nutrients.
- Feeding Tips: Crickets should be gut-loaded (fed nutritious food) before being offered to the gecko.
Mealworms
Mealworms are another staple food source for leopard geckos.
- Nutritional Value: Mealworms offer a decent source of protein and fat.
Dubia Roaches
Dubia roaches are a nutritious alternative to crickets and mealworms.
- Nutritional Value: Dubia roaches are high in protein and relatively easy to digest.
Waxworms
Waxworms are high in fat and should be used as a treat rather than a regular part of the diet.
- Nutritional Value: Waxworms are high in fat.
- Feeding Tips: Waxworms can be offered occasionally for variety or to entice a gecko that is being picky about food.
Superworms
Superworms are larger than mealworms and are high in protein and fat.
Read also: What to Feed Your Leopard Gecko
- Nutritional Value: Superworms are high in protein and fat.
- Feeding Tips: Superworms should be gut-loaded and dusted with calcium powder before feeding.
Silkworms and Hornworms
Silkworms and hornworms are excellent sources of protein, low in fat, and rich in moisture.
- Nutritional Value: Silkworms and hornworms are excellent sources of protein, low in fat, and rich in moisture, making them very hydrating for geckos.
- Important Note: Wild hornworms are toxic and should never be fed to leopard geckos. Only captive-bred hornworms raised on a safe diet should be used.
Black Soldier Fly Larvae
Black soldier fly larvae can be included in the diet to provide additional nutrients.
Discoid Roaches
Discoid roaches are another suitable feeder insect, offering varied nutrition.
Feeding Guidelines
Quantity and Frequency
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): They have faster metabolisms and need to eat more often. Juveniles should be fed daily.
- Young Adults: Young adults should be fed every other day or every three days.
- Adults: Adults whose tail is fatter than their neck can be fed every 5 days.
Avoiding Overfeeding
Overfeeding your leopard gecko can cause it to regurgitate its food and may cause lethargy. Always monitor your gecko’s weight and adjust feeding accordingly. Leopard Geckos store excess fat in their tails and will use this as a reserve when they are unable to access food.
Read also: The Hoxsey Diet
Feeding Methods
- Hand Feeding: You can hand feed insects to your gecko with soft-tipped feeding tweezers. This is also a great way to bond with your pet!
- 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.
Canned Insects
If your gecko will eat them, canned insects can be a helpful way to increase variety by introducing bugs that you’re unwilling to deal with live or are hard to find otherwise. However, avoid dried insects, as these tend to have a dehydrating effect on reptiles.
Essential Supplements
Leopard geckos require calcium, vitamin D3, and multivitamins to maintain optimal health.
Calcium
All insect feeders should be dusted with calcium powder to balance the calcium-phosphorus ratio.
- How to Feed: Dust insects with calcium powder before feeding.
- Best calcium for leopard geckos with UVB:
- Arcadia CalciumPro Mg
- Repashy Calcium Plus LoD (no multivitamin needed)
- Miner-All Indoor
- Zoo Med Repti Calcium without D3
- Best calcium for leopard geckos without UVB:
- Repashy Calcium Plus (no multivitamin needed)
- Zoo Med Repti Calcium with D3Some 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
- 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. 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’re not using a UVB light, be sure to use a supplement that includes vitamin D3 to prevent Metabolic Bone Disease.
Multivitamins
Leopard geckos also need an occasional multivitamin.
- How to Feed: 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
- Arcadia RevitaliseD3Since 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.
Gut-Loading Feeder Insects
Because leopard geckos rely on insects for all of their nutrition, it is especially important to gut-load feeder insects for at least 24 hours before offering. Gut loading your Leopard Geckos’ insects ensures that they are receiving the optimal nutrition from their meals. 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.
Recommended Gut-Loading Formulas:
- Arcadia InsectFuel
- Dubia.com Dubia Diet
- Lugarti Premium Dubia Diet
- Mazuri Better Bug Gut Loading Diet
- Repashy Bug BurgerFor 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.
Insects to Avoid
- Bugs caught in your backyard: These can make your gecko sick. 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.
- 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. Always ensure your animals are being fed hornworms that were raised on a captive diet.
- 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.
Addressing Feeding Issues
- Loss of Appetite: 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. However, 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.
- Temperature: Your Leopard Gecko may not be eating because its tank is too cold. Leopard Geckos are reptiles, and as such are dependent on external ways to help regulate their body’s temperature. Your Leopard Gecko needs heat to digest its food and so, if its tank is too cold, it will go off its food.
- 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.
Natural Behaviors
- Shedding: After shedding, Leopard Geckos eat their shed skin.
- Egg Laying: Female Leopard Geckos sometimes lay eggs which are infertile (so, not created through contact with a male and therefore no baby is inside them).
- Eating Eggs: Sometimes they do, yes. This is the same on whether Leopard Geckos will eat their young.
- Eating Poop: The general opinion here is that Leopard Geckos would not eat their own poop.
Additional Tips
- Water: Leopard Geckos should always have access to clean, fresh drinking water, and cannot survive for very long when dehydrated.
- Vet Fee Cover: Our vet fee only policy will cover £1,000 of vet fees for accidental injury or illness. Policies can include vet fee cover, mortality and theft. Getting a quote is quick and easy.
- Never ignore weight loss: 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.