What Should I Feed My Pet Crested Gecko?

Generally with babies, you might throw in like half a dozen per day just to see how they're doing. One nice thing about feeding live insects daily is... What's up guys? It's Colin, and in today's video, we are gonna be doing a crested gecko feeding guide. Today's video is gonna focus primarily on the diet of crested geckos, but most of these principles will also apply to your gargoyle gecko, lichianus gecko, and other New Caledonian gecko species. I also just wanna say that there are many different ways and ideologies that people go about feeding these geckos, but today's video is gonna be focused on just the way we do things here at the Tide of Tijuana. So, in general, we know that in the wild that crested geckos are omnivorous, so it means they eat a variety of different plant material and fruit material, as well as protein, like insects and small hole prey. In captivity, we tend to feed them a staple diet of either what is called a Pangea or Repashy crested gecko diet. These come in a variety of different products and different manufacturers. This is a powdered diet. It is fully fortified with vitamins and minerals, and it's gonna also contain protein to a certain extent, as well as fruit in it. When it comes to prepared crested gecko diet, there's usually two big players in the market. Right here, we have our Repashy Superfoods crested gecko diet. This is just their plain banana flavor. And then we have our Pangea with insects. So these are the two most commonly used diets. Pangea and Repashy both come in several flavors. Repashy, in particular, also has a bunch of seasonal offerings. Pangea, as you can see, also has a bunch of different flavors available year round. These are the two most commonly used types of diet. It tends to be kind of like a Pepsi and Coke situation. You'll have certain people swear over one or the other, but in general, both products are of pretty equal quality and will get the job done for you. This product is typically prepared by mixing water with the powder, and then it's left in a small dish for the animal to freely feed on in the enclosure. As far as these diets are concerned, I like to leave them a decent size amount. First off, you'll find the geckos may prefer one flavor or the other. But when you're mixing the product, I like to shoot for the consistency of loose applesauce. Not quite watery runny, but not quite thick like peanut butter. So somewhere in between, generally. As far as replacing the diet, here at the Titan of Tijuana, we recommend replacing the diet every one to two days. Now, this can occur earlier. Obviously, if the gecko steps in it and gets a footprint in it, poops in the food, then you wanna replace that food sooner than that one to two day range. In general, though, one to two days max, you wanna replace your crested gecko diet. As far as crested gecko diet is concerned, we like to have it available at all times for both babies and adults. So this item should be available for them at all times. The next item we wanna talk about is live insects. So here at the Tideight Iguana, we recommend feeding baby crested geckos live insects daily. When you do feed your live insects, you wanna make sure they're dusted in an appropriate calcium supplement. Good calciums include Zoo Med and Repashy's Calcium Plus. Make sure any time you're feeding a live insect, though it is dusted, you wanna feed an item that's appropriate for the size of your gecko. So generally, that means the prey item should be able to fit between the space between their eyes. So for small geckos, this could mean, obviously, small crickets. And then for your adult geckos, this could mean large crickets, medium to small-sized juvia roaches, and other worms. But in general, for babies, we like to feed crickets every single day. As well, if you already have a ton of crickets left over, don't keep throwing crickets in your enclosure. That's no good. You don't want them to overwhelm the gecko or stress the gecko out. So if you do notice there's a little bit of uneaten crickets left in there, that should be a good gauge as to how many crickets you should add. Generally, with babies, you might throw in like half a dozen per day just to see how they're doing. One nice thing about feeding live insects daily is it's usually going to increase the growth rate of your baby gecko substantially. So it's gonna get them onto that bigger size a lot quicker. Now, baby crested geckos, they may not, if you're feeding them crickets daily, admittedly, they may not be touching the fortified diet a ton, but you still wanna offer it. And especially as they grow in size, usually they'll start to transition onto that diet. Now, as far as feeding insects to adults, we generally recommend two to three times per week is a good amount. It gives them not only a little bit of extra protein, but as well, it provides some stimulation and enrichment. As you can imagine, eating a sloppy fruit porridge your entire life could be a little bit boring. So it's good for their naturalistic behavior to actually hunt some whole prey. And it also provides a nice source of dietary fiber and some extra material moving through the digestive system. As with babies, you wanna make sure with adults, and when you're feeding insects, you make sure they're dusted with a high quality calcium supplement. And then occasionally I do like to throw in a multivitamin with beta carotene in there as well for supplement. As far as treats for crested geckos, there's a variety of different foods. Pangea in particularly makes a gecko treat. Now this stuff, the protein breakdown is a little bit lower. So on your standard Pangea products, the protein content is usually around 20%. On this stuff, it's a little bit lower. So the protein's only 9%. And then as well, the fat's gonna be a little bit lower on this. So this is a little bit leaner of a product. So they do make a gecko treat, number one. Second thing as well, you can also, some people like to make their own crested gecko food as a treat, as a supplement. You can take some whole fruits like banana and things like that as long as they're plain and organic, and blend them up into a paste or a slurry. Some people like to do that as a treat as well. The next thing would be like insect treats. So like you could do very small hornworms, waxworms, things like that. People will feed their adult geckos. Those can be an excellent option as well. In general though, I wouldn't feed them treats usually more than like, you know, once a week. Stick to the staple diet of calcium-dusted insects and the prepared gecko diet. If you have any questions about crested gecko diet, be sure to stop in store or message us online. Have an excellent day.