As a pet owner, it is important to take good care of your pet. This means you have to provide your pet with a well-balanced diet to ensure it stays healthy and strong. Therefore, if you decide to keep a leopard gecko as a pet, you will need to know the foods it prefers to eat and what foods are good for its development.
So, can leopard geckos eat dried crickets? Leopard geckos are insectivores and prefer to eat live crickets. If the insect is not wiggling or moving around, a leopard gecko will ignore it. Some leopard geckos will eat dried crickets, but it might take you some time before they accept it. Feeding your leopard gecko live insects is more beneficial to it rather than dead, dried insects.
In the wild, leopard geckos will hunt the little insects for food. A leopard gecko is your responsibility in your home, and you have to provide it with a suitable meal like whether leopard gecko can eat freeze-dried crickets, if leopard geckos can eat dried mealworms and if they can eat brown crickets.
Leopard geckos diet comprises of small insects. Freeze-dried crickets are dead crickets preserved and sold to pet owners who do not like to handle live insects.
It is highly recommended that you always feed your leopard gecko live crickets. Leopard geckos prefer to eat live crickets, and most of them will decline to eat freeze-dried crickets no matter how many times you offer them. Leopard geckos do not have the desire to feed on anything that does not move.
Therefore, before you get a leopard gecko, you should be ready to handle live insects. If you cannot handle live insects and your leopard gecko declines to eat freeze-dried crickets, you are going to have a weak and malnourished pet in your home.
Freeze-dried crickets are an easier option, and it is a shame that most leopard geckos choose not to eat dead insects. You can keep a can or two of freeze-dried crickets ready to use if you cannot get live crickets in time. Since you cannot force them to eat what they do not like, you have to accept their dietary choice.
Live insects are also better than freeze-dried crickets because of the added nutritional value. It is not that freeze-dried crickets lack any nutrition; leopard geckos will get more from live crickets than dead ones. Leopard geckos also get water from their food, and freeze-dried crickets do not have a higher moisture content as compared to live crickets. In case your leopard gecko can eat freeze-dried crickets, then provide it with plenty of water to avoid dehydration.
You can try to train your leopard gecko to eat freeze-dried crickets. One method of training is holding the freeze-dried crickets in your hand and making them look alive. Shake your arm and see if the leopard gecko is interested in the dead crickets.
This method takes effort and time, and you have to be patient. Once the leopard gecko starts eating the freeze-dried crickets from your hand, you can not try putting some in its cage and see if it eats them.
You can also train your leopard gecko to eat freeze-dried crickets by outing some dead crickets in a feeding bowl and spray them with a squirt bottle. The stream in the feeding bowl will make the freeze-dried crickets appear alive, and your leopard gecko might eat them.
Another method is using a vibrating food dish to give your leopard gecko. A vibrating food dish is perfect for feeding canned food to a leopard gecko, and it is remote-controlled, so you do not have to stay next to the cage and shake the freeze-dried crickets all the time. It is not a guarantee that these methods will work; keep an open mind that your leopard gecko might refuse to eat dead crickets even after training it.
Do not leave the dead crickets inside your leopard gecko’s cage. Some people think that if they leave the freeze-dried crickets in the cage, the leopard gecko will eat them when they get hungry. Leopards geckos are picky eaters and will not eat anything if they do not like it, even if they are hungry. If you do that, you might starve your leopard gecko, leading to numerous health complications and death. Dead insects can also attract disease-causing pathogens.
Can Leopard Geckos Eat Dried Mealworms?
One of the common insects that people feed their leopard geckos is mealworms. Mealworms are a larva stage of the darkling beetle. Before they morph into pupas, they are a good source of protein and fiber for reptiles.
Leopard geckos do not eat dried mealworms. Leopard geckos prefer to eat live insects, and mealworms are not an exception. If the insects are not wiggling or moving, your leopard gecko will not be interested in eating it. If you cannot find live mealworms to feed your leopard gecko, you can try looking for other live insects that it enjoys, such as wax worms, roaches, crickets, or silkworms.
An important reason why you feed your leopard gecko live mealworms is gut loading. Gut loading is a procedure where you feed the mealworms foods high in nutrients not available in insects hoping they can pass those nutrients to your pet.
When you feed the mealworms with food rich in calcium and vitamins, there is a possibility that your leopard gecko will get these nutrients after you feed them to the mealworms. You cannot gut load dried mealworms; therefore, missing the opportunity to feed your leopard gecko nutritious foods.
Dried mealworms lack moisture, and if you do not provide your leopard gecko with a different source of water, it could get severely dehydrated. Dried mealworms are also difficult to swallow, especially if you have a young leopard gecko.
Dried mealworms also lack some of the vital nutrients that a leopard gecko would get from eating live mealworms. If you choose to feed your leopard gecko, live mealworms, make sure you refrigerate them. Refrigerating mealworms slows down the pupation of the mealworm.
Can Leopard Geckos Eat Brown Crickets?
Crickets are the easiest insects you can find for your leopard gecko. There are several cricket species that you can feed your insects and contain numerous vital nutrients for your leopard geckos, such as proteins, vitamins, and calcium.
Brown crickets are a species of crickets that leopard geckos enjoy eating. Brown crickets are fast, but your leopard gecko is faster, making it exciting for your pet to catch its prey. If your leopard gecko is weak or cannot move fast, you can opt to give it black crickets, which are slow. When left in the tank for too long, crickets can start to nibble on the skin of the leopard gecko.
Brown crickets are less aggressive than black crickets, and it may take a long time before they start biting your leopard gecko. Brown crickets are also easily available and cheap. They are the easiest insects to gut load, meaning your leopard gecko will receive extra nutrients if you feed them gut load crickets.
Brown crickets are not hard to store, and you can keep many of them in a container. They require less to feed and can stay alive in a container for a long time as long as they have enough oxygen supply.
Leopard geckos do not know when to stop during feeding time, so be careful not to give it too many brown crickets. Brown crickets are rich in fat and proteins and cause your leopard gecko to become overweight. Leopard geckos store fats in their tails, but if you overfeed your leopard geckos with many insects, the fats will be distributed across the body and could lead to health complications when the tail is full.
Brown crickets are good at hiding, and if they get away from your leopard gecko, they will find a spot to hide in the enclosure. Crickets will smell if left in the cage for too long and getting the smell out can be difficult. Make sure the brown crickets you put in the enclosure are consumed before adding others.
Do not get big brown crickets, and leopard geckos cannot swallow insects bigger than their head’s length. Big brown crickets can also be a source of stress for your leopard gecko.
Final Thoughts
Many people would love to feed their leopard geckos dried insects, but their complete disinterest in dead insects continues to be a large stumbling block. Dried crickets or mealworms seem an easier option, but it takes great effort to make your leopard gecko eat them. You can try training your leopard gecko to eat dried insects, or if you have some money to spare, you can buy a vibrating dish.
Leopard geckos are cute pets, and a good diet consisting of live insects is key to their survival. If you cannot handle live insects, maybe a leopard gecko is not a good option for a pet. If you decide to train your leopard gecko to eat dried crickets or mealworms, be patient and be ready to accept if it does not eat the dried insects.
