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 #1685996


Alie
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 Is this diet ok??

hey! i was wondering if this diet was good. every night i take 1 part CGD and 3 part water ( about 1 half tspn total ) and mix it with 1 tspn of either chicken and peach baby food. ( one day chicken and peach the next! so and so ) PLUS calcium with d3. SO ( yah its kinda confusing ) it looks like this. 2 and a half teaspoons of babyfood/CGD/a pinch of calcium. it stays long enuff for my gecko’s dinner and early breakfast. is that ok? srry if it is confusing!!!!! thank you thank you thank you!!!! also crickets are provided once or twice a week. im trying my best to keep my gecko healthy!
04/02/08  12:12am

 #1686045


GekkoniDazed
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   Message To: Alie   In reference to Message Id: 1685996


 Is this diet ok??

Which type of CGD do you use? If it’s the Repashy/T-rex stuff, then it is already formulated and balanced. It’s not a big deal to add in a little bit of the baby food, but once you do, you are diluting the essential vitamins and minerals in the diet. So, it’s not absolutely necessary to add it in there, so only use it in moderation or you’ll throw off the balance too greatly.

Also, it should have enough calcium already in it. Calcium is good, but too much calcium can be bad. You don’t want to overdose your gecko either. I would suggest dusting the crickets in a calcium plus D3 powder if you’d like, but I wouldn’t add it to the CGD at all.

In conclusion, perhaps the best thing you can do is to feed the straight CGD every other day, with dusted crickets once per week.

Hope that helps and makes sense. ;)



04/02/08  01:10am

 #1686207


Kittyful
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   Message To: GekkoniDazed   In reference to Message Id: 1686045


 Is this diet ok??

Can organic baby food be used basically as an occasional treat, then?
04/02/08  09:30am

 #1686739


GekkoniDazed
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   Message To: Kittyful   In reference to Message Id: 1686207


 Is this diet ok??

Yes, I’ve heard of people doing that before. You just don’t want your gecko to get hooked on it and not eat the CGD and miss out on a good diet. That’s the biggest fear.



04/02/08  06:07pm

 #1692663


Alleycatt
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   Message To: GekkoniDazed   In reference to Message Id: 1686739


 Is this diet ok??

i wouldn’t do the babyfood more than once a month because if you do it once a week or more, they will wait to eat the babyfood and skip out on the stuff that is good for them... i know what it is like to want to give your guys variety though, i switched to the two part diet because there are so many flavors you can use! so i change the flavor each week and repeat, they love it! it is a bit more $$ but i think it is worth it, you also get alot more, and it lasts for a really long time!



04/07/08  03:21am

 #1692870


Guido1090
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   Message To: Alleycatt   In reference to Message Id: 1692663


 Is this diet ok??

if you do not want to buy the 2 part diet but you want to change it for them you can use fruit juices occasionally instead of water to mix the diet. the breeder that i got mine from told me this. i forget which fruit juices he said he uses tho.
04/07/08  11:15am

 #1693153


Alleycatt
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   Message To: Guido1090   In reference to Message Id: 1692870


 Is this diet ok??

actually that is just like adding baby food to the one part, it still messes up the nutritional value that they are supposed to be getting, if you wanted to do that with the two part diet according to the instructions it should be fine, but it is really just the same as adding baby food to the one part diet because juice has alot of added sugar as well. i used to think it was alright too when i first started, lol i even used to add grape juice to mine, it was in the baby section i think it was gerber graduates juice, just don’t add anything citrus to the diet because it is very acidic and can be really harmful!

i used to get so mad when people would say wast i just said, thinking "ok they eat fruit, how could it be harmful to add fruit?!?!?!" but it messes up of the internal make up of the CGD which is a suplimented meal meaning it already has everything they need inside the mixture, it even already has a flavor [banana i believe] so adding anything except water to that mixture dilutes it and makes it to where it is no longer a complete diet with everything that they need...

but some people just kinda do what they want and then when it works alright for them [for the most part] they think it is fine, but it can and eventually does cause major issues even though they may be in the long time coming, or thy could come up very quickly. it is kind of like letting a kid eat ice creme every day, eventually there will be an issue....
04/07/08  03:43pm

 #1693176


Guido1090
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   Message To: Alleycatt   In reference to Message Id: 1693153


 Is this diet ok??

it isnt the same as adding baby food to the cgd. for one you would be using all natural juice. with no added sugar. and also the juice is what would make the powder become cgd. it would not be diluting the mix at all because you are not adding it to the cgd paste. you add it to the powder to make it become the paste.

if the cgd powder is already a complete diet when mixed with water how would it become not a complete diet when mixed with another kind of liquid?

this makes no sense to me. explain it please.
04/07/08  03:57pm

 #1693478


Alleycatt
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   Message To: Guido1090   In reference to Message Id: 1693176


 Is this diet ok??

because the juice has other things in it, it has other vitamins and minerals as well as natural sugars in it that throw off the balance of the CGD which is supposed to be a perfect balance for them[this is also what baby food does, it is the exact same thing]. so lets say that you add grape juice, when you do this, you are adding extra calcium, sugar and other things [which i can not remember at the moment] to the mix that are not intended to be there for the diet to be COMPLETELY nutritionally sound, and it disrupts what they SHOULD be getting out of the food.
also by replacing the water with the juice they are not getting the water that they should be getting with the correct mixture, you are replacing electrolytes, and hydration with something that is sticky and sugary [even if it is completely natural juice, there are natural sugars in it] which can also cause dehydration among other things because they are not getting the correct balance of vitamins, minerals or electrolytes any more.

please understand that i am not trying to say this to piss you off, or say anything bad about you, just that i am saying it because it is a misconception that it is better for them, and it can cause issues. i mean repashy himself made these foods, he says it all himself too. i mean if it were better for them or even OK to do so, it would be included in the instructions that "it is ok to substitute juice for water" which it is not. now on the other hand in the two part system it does say that it is ok to substitute the flavor portion with baby food, or juice if you do it in the correct manner [by using the weight in juice that you would usually use in the flavor portion] but even then you have to add water to it because you can not substitute the water with juice and you have to mix the two parts by weight. it isn’t good for them if you do it the other way. if you want to occasionally leave some juice in the cage for them to drink as a treat, just like the baby food that would be fine, i have done this before, but be careful how often you do it because they may not drink water if done too often.

but this is specifically why i use the two part diet, because if you want to you can throw in fresh fruit or juice every once in a while and it doesn’t mess it up. and i just don’t want people to have the wrong information.
04/07/08  07:10pm

 #1694071


Guido1090
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   Message To: Alleycatt   In reference to Message Id: 1693478


 Is this diet ok??

ahh ok thanks. that makes some sense. i was not saying to do it all the time either. i said once in a while as a treat i think. and if i didnt write that i ment to. i guess my guy will just have to deal with banana flavor. the 2 part is to complicated and expensive when the 1 part is just as good in my opinion. thanks for letting me know this because my breeder told me that i could use juice instead of water if i wanted to. so now i will need to do more research to figure it out because i have had experienced people tell me both ways.
04/08/08  12:27am

 #1694174


Alleycatt
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   Message To: Guido1090   In reference to Message Id: 1694071


 Is this diet ok??

yeah it is kind of frustrating sometimes to me when i hear that breeders are telling people this. i mean there are even books out there that were written as the repashy diet was being developed that say to feed babyfood, and i really think they should correct that. i mean i get that you want people to buy these geckos, but at least give the correct information! i’m not trying to say that the guy who told you that isn’t a good guy or anything, i mean he could have been misinformed as well! i was when i first started out, i know it’s weird to have two completely conflicting points of view!

when i go to a reptile show, the first thing i ask is what do they feed their geckos, lol i had one guy who was SELLING the repashy diet, it was RIGHT BEHIND HIM, and he told me "Oh, yeah they are super easy to take care of! all you have to feed them is babyfood and they don’t need anything special, you don’t even have to feed crickets!" i just walked away because i knew if i didn’t i was going to rip into him hard core... you could tell though that he couldn’t sell any of his cresties though because they were all between 300-600, and i think he was just desperate to sell as many as possible, but i was so mad!

i am making it a point though to give little samples of the two part diet whenever i sell a baby though just so that if they don’t have any food yet [some people just don’t think about things like that b/c they get so excited, lol, i still get so excited sometimes about an awesome find that i forget to ask general questions and have to email later!] but that way they have enough to last a few weeks and they get a few different flavors. lol, and yes it is EXPENSIVE especially if you are living paycheck to paycheck, but it lasts alot longer for me, and that is good because i have eleven at the moment, and once you get used to the whole "by weight" thing, it is pretty easy, but it does take some getting used to. i do 12g base and 8g nectar and that lasts me about a week, but for one or two gex i would say 3g base and 2g nectar, that may last more than a week though, i’m not sure it’s been a long time since i had just two!
04/08/08  03:22am

 #1694376


Guido1090
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   Message To: Alleycatt   In reference to Message Id: 1694174


 Is this diet ok??

what you said about the breeder not being good i do not think is true. him and his gf breed them and they have 100-200 geckos. they seem like they know what they are doing.

i will research this some. i am not someone that will just listens to people on the internet that i do not know their experience or anything. i take everyones advice and use that to decide a what i should do.

do they cover this in the Rhac book? i havent read the whole book yet lol.

the breeder sent me a little bag of 1 part CGD and i am still using it. i use a 1/8th tsp scoop to mix the diet with 1 part diet and 2 part water and zazu doesnt even eat half of it. do they normally eat more than he is eating?
04/08/08  10:04am

 #1694568


Alleycatt
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   Message To: Guido1090   In reference to Message Id: 1694376


 Is this diet ok??

no, you misunderstood! i was saying that i do NOT think that the breeder is a bad guy! i can’t think he is i don’t even know him, for all i know he could have been told the exact same thing when he started out, that i was, and that is by no means his fault at all! i mean most people find out stuff like this from breeders so they believe them, i did too until i saw what can happen, and talked to ALOT of breeders about the subject, and heard some real horror stories...



but concerning you little man, about how big is he?

i have a juvie male at the moment, he is about 15grams [5 or 6 inches snout to tail] and he will only eat a 1/8tsp of food when it is already mixed, so it sounds like you would be feeding him 3/8tsp once it is all mixed together [just a guestimation of material and stuff]? if that is the case, my adult male eats 3/8 tsp [i know he is 40g’s, and almost ten inches i would guess] i would try putting one 1/8 tsp scoop of the mixture in a water bottle cap, and see how much of that he eats, maybe refrigerate the rest so that you don’t waste it if you want to... if he eats all of it add a little more to it when you feed the next night, this should give you an idea of how much he will eat, now on the other hand, if he still doesn’t finish all of the 1/8th tsp, and there is still some left over i would still stick with that size because it is easier to tell when you will need to add another scoop of it to the feeding dish...

keep in mind that each night, he will only eat a portion of food, about the size of his head, and temp. humidity and light exposure all play a role into how much of an apatite the guy will have, if it is a bit on the cooler side, and he isn’t getting much light this is telling him that it is winter, so he isn’t going to eat as much as he would if it were warmer and he were getting more light, they kind of simulate the seasons...

also how often do you feed?

i have some who will only eat it when it is fresh, and some who will not eat it unless it has been sitting out for at least 24 hours. so in my females cage, i always offer fresh every day, but i leave the food from the night before in there as well, my male gets fresh food every other day, because he likes to let it sit out, and the hatchlings [mainly because i am paranoid that they will get sick or something] get fresh food every night, and so does my juvie male...

let me know how things go i hope this helps!
04/08/08  01:34pm

 #1694574


Guido1090
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   Message To: Alleycatt   In reference to Message Id: 1694568


 Is this diet ok??

he is 8 grams. i just weighed him this morning.

i put it in and let it stay in for 2 nights. by 3 nights it is moldy so i take it out before then. he seems to not eat it the first night its out and then eat about 1/4 of it the second night. how do i mix a smaller amount? this is the smallest scoop i could find.


if you go to my post "zazu’s vet trip" you will see more info about him. i am takin him to the vet thursday.
04/08/08  01:47pm

 #1694578


Alleycatt
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   Message To: Guido1090   In reference to Message Id: 1694574


 Is this diet ok??

i would look for the odd sized measuring spoons and try the "pinch" sized spoon, i think it is 1/16th or something close to that, i will check it out!
04/08/08  01:52pm


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